SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
A gunman fired upon thousands of people attending a music festival on the Las Vegas Strip Sunday night, in a brutal attack that is blamed for at least 58 deaths, police say. In the mass shooting and panic that ensued, 515 people were injured. At least one of the dead is an off-duty police officer who was attending the concert.
Editorializing: Interesting how media always emphasize ISLAMIC terrorists, but downplay domestic terrorism as psychologically disturbed individual lone-wolfs.
This discussion has been archived.
No new comments can be posted.
Over 50 dead in mass shooting in Las Vegas
|
Log In/Create an Account
| Top
| 442 comments
| Search Discussion
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
Hacking's just another word for nothing left to kludge.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Mykl on Tuesday October 03 2017, @06:05AM (1 child)
Thanks for posting this. While I don't agree with the position put forward, it's the most insightful explanation of the thinking behind this position I've read and logically follows from its premises.
As you point out, any restriction to individuals that remain available to government is unacceptable under this philosophy. Doesn't that make the entire concept of a police force, central bank etc contradictory? Regular people can't print money, conduct stop-and-search etc? What about states that allow the death penalty?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 03 2017, @06:19AM
I don't have all the answers; I've just tried to examine the foundations of "free" versus "not free" as closely as I can and relate what I've found to others.
That said, anything I can do myself, I can delegate to others. I have 100% ownership over my own body, and 0% over yours. If I harm your person or property, you could deal with my crimes yourself... or you could delegate that to a neutral third party, which might take the form of something like a police force. However, stop-and-search has no place among free people, as I expect you'd agree if I, an ordinary person, tried to stop and search you. If I can't do it, I can't delegate it to a police department.
The other concerns you mention open up many wormy cans, though most of them hinge upon the use of fraud and force by governments. While restitution (making victims whole) seems to be the only proper tool to use to bring about justice (one nowhere to be found in the USA), I can see the use of a death penalty in a justice system that at least pretends to follow the premise that "it is better to set ten guilty men free before wrongly convicting one innocent". After all, if someone is found, beyond a reasonable doubt, to be too dangerous to others to release, who is going to pay for his room and board for the rest of his natural life? As you would rightly object if I robbed you at gunpoint to pay my own rent, I cannot delegate authority to the same for a government to "tax" you to pay to keep convicted murderers housed and fed. Finding someone to donate a few bullets, however, is a much more reasonable endeavor. (Note that, with a 95%+ conviction rate, the USA doesn't even have a pretense of justice in its system.)