Thank the Good Lord for that! — andrewk

In other words, "Thank the Good Lord that some of his children are treated by their brothers and sisters as less than human".

the rest of my argument still stands: scientists and those who give them credence do not lack empathy; their motivations are very often driven precisely by empathy. — NKBJ

That is a red herring.

I did not say that any particular individual or group lacks empathy.

I said that a particular group is always vilified and is never responded to with empathy.

THAT sounds more like a strawperson to me — NKBJ

No.

Any disagreement is always framed as intelligent, rational, mostly secular, pro-science people who have purely altruistic intentions and are our only hope versus stupid, delusional, often religious fundamentalist, people who are against science and who are a grave threat to humanity.

but I do not think that they are the same, or have the same motivations as the average person who is anti-science. — NKBJ

I do not think that these "anti-science" people exist.

Are you perhaps mistaking vehemently disagreeing with someone with not being able to understand/empathize with their view? — NKBJ

It is not about "able".

It is about actual practice.

In actual practice, yes, it is extremely rare to see anybody who is critical of the minority in debates over GMOs, climate change, mandatory vaccinations, etc show any empathy or compassion for members of that minority. Instead you often get responses like this:

Too many people will suffer and die if we wait to consider the feelings of the poor, gullible people that have been sucked in by such nonsense. — andrewk

The problem that skeptics face in grasping the rationale behind some mainstream scientific conclusions isn't methodological. It is rather, to put it crudely, that they don't have a clue what it is they are talking about. That's simply because they lack a sufficient formal training in the relavant fields. — Pierre-Normand

And all of the ideologues who use science to attack religion, attack social conservative opponents in debates over sex education, transgenderism, homosexuality, etc. do know what they are talking about and do have sufficient training in relevant fields?

In order to correctly assuage the worries of the skeptics, the mainstream scientists would need to highlight the substantial flaws in their arguments, and also criticize the ideologies that bias the skeptics' evaluations of the practical aims and other social aspects of the research, rather than advocate for them to accept mythical methodological principles that nobody actually obeys. — Pierre-Normand

But the ideologies of "pro-science" laypeople do not need to be criticized the same way?

But it's foolish to require absolute certainty, — Ciceronianus the White

Where has anybody said that it is a requirement?

and so foolish to rely on the lack of absolute certainty as a guide to policy, or practical decisions of any kind. Probability is all we can reasonably require; the higher the better, of course. "There's always some reason to doubt" is no basis for decision-making. — Ciceronianus the White

Again, what does that have to do with anything anybody has said?

The only thing I see being said is:

1.) There is not an anti-science movement.

2.) The disagreements over climate change, GMOs, the safety of vaccines, etc. are about values, not about science. Critics of the prevailing science have genuine concerns, such as their concern about losing more and more control over what is in the food that they eat.

3.) More science sometimes make such disagreements intractable.

4.) The misunderstanding about 1.)-3.) is due to scientism.

5.) "Far too many citizens talk as if they believe science can do their politics for them. It is about time we put that belief to rest."

Claiming that science and empathy are somehow at odds is a false dichotomy. — NKBJ

Straw man.

I said that empathy is lacking. I did not say anything about things being "at odds".

Empathy is precisely what drives me to vaccinate my children. If I am fortunate enough to be healthy and have healthy offspring, I have an obligation towards those less fortunate to help establish herd immunity so that they do not die of the whooping cough, rubella, polio, etcetcetc. — NKBJ

None of this answers the question. Is there, or is there not, an anti-science movement made up of intellectually incompetent, sociopathic nutcases who are a grave threat to all of humanity?

Intuition is great, but it can lead you astray. That's where pretty much all logical fallacies come from: our intuitions being imperfect. The gambler's fallacy, for example, feels so right, but is oh so wrong! — NKBJ

So it is as simple as there is an anti-science movement made up of intellectually incompetent, sociopathic nutcases who are a grave threat to all of humanity?

In respect to the former - there has been considerable fear, uncertainty and doubt cast on the science by lobbyists associated with fossi fuel companies, and by industrialists with vested interests. — Wayfarer

How did they get the resources to do that?

It’s very unfortunate that the facts of climate change have now been dragged into lunatic debates about green politics and conspiracy theory. — Wayfarer

You mean there was a time when industrialization and climate change were seen together completely through an objective lense?

It is a clear and present danger to the lives of billions of people and needs to be dealt with accordingly - soberly, effectively, and guided by the science. — Wayfarer

Use what put people in danger to get them out of danger?

As for anti-vaccination theories, they are either misguided idealists or simply misinformed. In any case, their misinformation is pernicious and again can lead to many preventable deaths and illnesses. — Wayfarer

What breeds and fuels that misinformation?

As Daniel Patrick Moynihan said, ‘everyone has a right to their own opinions, but nobody has a right to their own facts’. — Wayfarer

Interpretation needed.

Lack of intelligence doesn't correlate well with holding these highly unscientific ideas. Some of the idea holders I've known are really quite intelligent. Maybe slightly crazy, but definitely not stupid. Many of them were also quite pleasant people who, for the most part, led more or less normal lives doing productive work. — Bitter Crank

Yet, apparently their supposedly highly intelligent, highly rational opponents easily fall for the narrative that says that there is a significant anti-science movement made up of nutcases.

Too many people will suffer and die if we wait to consider the feelings of the poor, gullible people that have been sucked in by such nonsense. — andrewk

I think that Election Day 2016 in the U.S. is a good example of what happens when "the feelings of the poor, gullible people that have been sucked in by such nonsense" are not considered.

I do not think that historians and social scientists hundreds of years from now will say that lives were saved.

The use of science should be restricted to scientific topics - LIKE climate change and the risks and benefits of vaccination. — andrewk

The genie is already out of the bottle.

Science is used in service to everything now.

It would not surprise me if public relations firms advise clients that in order to defeat the competition they are going to have to outflank them with scientific credentials, references, language, etc., no matter how much it corresponds with "the facts".

It does not help when intellectuals/scholars cannot demarcate science and non-science.

Speaking of "facts", I have seen enough evidence from social commentators--many of them trained and employed in the natural sciences--of the dishonesty with the general public, lack of respect for the intelligence of members of the general public, politics, and other wrongs done by the science establishment to say that it is as culpable in the confusion over policy as any of the supposedly "anti-science" elements.

How do you define same opportunities? — Coldlight

Speaking of STEM, this is not rocket science.

One's desire, determination, preparation, skill, abilities, aptitude, sacrifice, hard work etc. should determine what opportunities are available to him/her. One's sex/gender should not play a role in determining what opportunities are available to him/her.

Forget about theory for a second. Just thinking about it in practical/pragmatic terms, if a girl has the potential to someday discover the cure for cancer, why would you want to deny her opportunities to realize that potential because of her sex/gender?

Why would anybody want to deny anybody any opportunity to realize his/her full potential?

Seeing people succeed and realize their dreams makes me smile.

What kind of person would be opposed to any person realizing his/her dreams and full potential? The only answer I can think of is a person who is so insecure, jealous, envious, bitter, narcissistic etc. that he/she needs others to fail before he/she can feel good about his/her own self.

We all know that men and women are different. — Purple Pond

And we all know that short people and tall people are different.

Men are usually more masculine and women are usually more feminine. — Purple Pond

Short people are usually shorter. Tall people are usually taller.

This is not to say that perceptions of what consists of masculinity and femininity can't change. — Purple Pond

This is not to say that perceptions of what consists of short and tall can't change. 6' used to be considered a big man in basketball, I believe.

In the STEM field, for example, men are grossly overrepresented in jobs related to science, technology, engineering, and math. — Purple Pond

Is "grossly" objective? What would be non-"grossly "? 51/49? 52/48? 60/40?

But why is there such a gap? Are women being oppressed? — Purple Pond

How long have those jobs existed?

How long have enough of them existed for the average person to aspire to fill them?

How long have significant numbers of girls and women wanted such jobs?

Do you know how many times I have heard women say that their fathers pushed them real hard to prepare for STEM fields? It is far more times than I have heard any saying that their mothers steered them in that direction.

One of my favorite athletes, Erin Stern, says that it was her father who encouraged her to try sports in high school, if I recall correctly. Now she is one of the biggest success stories in the relatively new sport of women's bodybuilding, and a role model for future generations of female athletes and women outside of competitive sports who simply want to have the best body they can.

Do you know who a Sports Illustrated article for the 40th anniversary of Title IX said it was who used the law to allow girls and women to have equal opportunities in sports? Fathers. It was fathers using Title IX to sue school boards, divisions of parks and recreation, etc. on behalf of their daughters that created a lot of opportunities previously available only to boys and men.

My guess is that girls' future in STEM fields starts in the home, not in the attitudes of the teachers doing the teaching, managers doing the hiring, CEOs making the policies, etc.

Perhaps in other cases there is a reason beyond the discrimination, may be in certain areas male traits are more desirable such as competitiveness and assertiveness. Can you think of other reasons why there is gender inequality? — Purple Pond

I do not believe it is any of that.

Again, I would say that mentors, role models, encouragement, demands/expectations, etc.--especially in the home/family--are the biggest predictor.

I personally haven't decided on whether or not there should be gender equality. I don't know how much male and female trait differences matter. What do you think? — Purple Pond

In the U.S. and, as far as I know, the rest of the post-Industrial world we have decided that every person, regardless of his/her sex, should have the same opportunities. How could you--or anybody--doubt that that is the right thing to do, let alone oppose it?

Doubting the wisdom of, or directly opposing, equal opportunities for girls and women because of their biology makes as much sense as doubting the wisdom of or directly opposing equal opportunities for short people because of their biology.

"One charge that many critics of the men’s movement bring up is that MRAs are disproportionately vocal: in other words, there are few of them, but holy Jesus are they loud! This is a complaint that can be leveled at pretty much any form of social protest in its beginning stages. When a movement arises, its supporters are few and tend to be made up of people normally understood by the rest of society as extremists. One only need reflect that the modern gay rights movement actually began with a riot to realize that it’s not at all uncommon for social pioneers to be loud, reactive, and not very representative, as a whole, of the group they claim to support." -- Men's Rights and Feminism: Playing the Victim

Oh yeah, that's scientism to a tee. It's sad that scientism is so pervasive. — Metaphysician Undercover

It would not surprise me if feminists inside and outside of academia are at the front of the line to attack scientism.

It would not surprise me if a well-designed, rigorous sociological investigation would show that intellectual movements--no matter if they are formal or informal--such as radical feminism, Intelligent Design, etc. all have the same characteristics and feed off of each other.

If we want to characterize them as ideologies for political action rather than movements made of intellectual/academic paradigms, their irrelevance to the search for objective reality--the search for universals, if they exist--may be even greater. Without real, imagined, or fabricated oppressors, who needs liberators? Do radical feminists need "the patriarchy" to continue to exist so that their power and influence can continue grow and expand? It would not surprise me.

When you discover the memo, we can discuss that, but until you do discover it, the mere possibility that there might be such a memo undermines the discussion without adding anything. — unenlightened

It does not undermine anything.

It means do not rush to judgement like an ideologue in a candy store jumping at any opportunity to bolster his/her cause.

It means, gasp, at all times be conscious of the fact that you could be completely off base. Now there--the latter--is something that everybody can (and probably always should) take for granted.

Thus we can discuss how life is but a dream — unenlightened

Not what I said.

I said that this all could be a dream.

— andrewk

This is why I tell anybody I can to keep a record of everything he/she reads.

Many years ago--probably the early 1990s--I read an article in Utne Reader, but I know nothing about the date, the title, the author, or the names of specific people and events mentioned in the body. What I do know is that women were celebrating the possibility of technology that would allow them to reproduce without men and rid the world of men. The world would finally be a good place.

That article left a permanent impression on my young psyche, and is probably the sub-conscious background against which all content related to gender issues enters my mind.

More recently--10 years ago, maybe--I discovered that it is believed that the evidence from biology tells us that the Y chromosome has very little time left relative to the time that all of the other biological material on Earth has existed; that female humans will move on; and that this is, apparently, good news to a lot of people such as some feminists.

Then I later read that working on the first draft of the obituary of the Y chromosome and half of the human species may have been premature. The Y chromosome, it was discovered, repairs itself.

Just last year I saw it written that the rise in households headed by single mothers is a good thing. It means that women can now be mothers without having to "settle". You know, in the past if they wanted to be mothers they had to take whatever man they could get and marry him. Now, with their college educations and middle class incomes, they can be mothers and either marry a man who they really want to be with (not the children's biological father), or never bring any man into the home. Liberation! Notice that how children are affected does not seem to be a primary, or even secondary, concern.

I do not know if any of that falls under radical feminism, but it all seems to show that there are some narrow agendas in the name of women's liberation, and that they will sacrifice truth/reality, objectivity, fallibility, corrigibility, etc. without hesitation.

It is like people start with a conclusion or outcome and then make all intellectual work that they can serve that conclusion or outcome.

It reminds me of the Intelligent Design movement.

When we wake up, we can have a laugh about that maybe, but in the dream, I want to talk about the dream-world, and to bring that up is just a futile undermining of any conversation, that is equivalent to the radical postmodern denial of fact that you seemed to want to reject. — unenlightened

I was trying to illustrate that nothing can be taken for granted.

A memo might be discovered showing that a male lawmaker voted in favor of legislation that restricts abortion because it made abortion opponents more receptive to and supportive of legislation that, oh, increased grants and scholarships targeting female STEM students.

Using that legislator's behavior with respect to abortion legislation as evidence of men oppressing women might, therefore, turn out to be foolish.

If you think that "this could all be a dream" is a bad illustration, I just now provided a different illustration.

Either way, tunnel vision in intellectual life is counterproductive, if not scary to those of us who are trying to see the whole picture.

Your 25,000th voter doesn't know what the total is, of course. For all he knows, the election IS already decided by many votes. — Bitter Crank

Or he is in, oh, Oregon, the polls have closed in the Eastern time zone where most voters are, news outlets have already projected a winner in most states, so he figures that the election is already mostly decided and his late vote won't matter.

How else can it be interpreted? — darthbarracuda

That it is futile to try to arrive at any purely objective reality.

Agnosticism on steroids, kind of.

I have also heard it this way: postmodern theory, unlike what its critics would have you believe, is not epistemological relativism. It is, rather, a sociological recognition of the totalizing, repressive nature of modernist/Enlightenment principles and their implementation.

Either the proposition that there are no truths is true, in which case it refutes itself, or it's false, in which case there are some propositions that are true — darthbarracuda

Some people get around that by saying that other than that truth, there are only truth claims.

A vocal minority does not represent the whole movement. — darthbarracuda

But when I struggle to find strong rebukes from the majority, I fear for our intellectual lives.

When people say they hate "feminists", they hate the small, vocal minority, the "feminazis" or whatever, and not the actual feminists, whom I think most people would actually agree with if they took the time to listen. — darthbarracuda

I don't hate feminists.

I sense that they hate me--that it is personal.

With anti-theists I don't sense hate. I sense extreme condescension and absolutely no respect for me as an intelligent, rational being. I am a complete idiot to them, I sense.

Those things make it very difficult to listen.

And very difficult to be heard.

I can't speak for other people, but I can say that I gravitate to speakers/writers who are humble and who show that they recognize and respect views opposed to their own.

From a radical feminist perspective, pointing out men's issues when radfems point out women's is an attempt to downplay the severity of the woman's predicament. — darthbarracuda

I know.

But I do not believe that it is true of most men's rights activists.

I look beyond the words/arguments and try to employ empathy and put myself in the speaker/writer's shoes.

I get it that feminists see MRAs as a threat to the progress women have made.

But I also get it that MRAs feel like women's issues have dominated to the complete exclusion of men's concerns and concerns that both men and women share.

Sounding the alarm about how boys' lives are being destroyed by careless ADHD diagnoses is not an attempt to destroy the progress that has been made on women's issues. If it is so loud that it drowns out feminist voices, that is probably because it is the only way to be acknowledged, let alone heard.

The fact is that many MRAs are misogynists. They point out the issues men deal with to make it seem like women are selfish, greedy, bitchy and should shut up and go back to the kitchen. Of course, it's veiled a lot of the time. But you'll notice that a lot of the time, MRAs are explicitly reacting to radical feminist theory. It's not really "about" men's issues - it's about obscuring women's issues. — darthbarracuda

I think that both sides do their share of obscuring.

It is sad when people who should find solidarity instead beat each other up. As David Smail has thoroughly demonstrated, the real sources of our suffering get obscured.

What if the truth is simply hard to accept? Is it not a possibility that "extreme" points of view may actually be true? Like I said before, having a tough skin is necessary if you are to trudge through the political arena. You have to be able to entertain notions without accepting them. — darthbarracuda

What makes them difficult for me to even begin to swallow without immediate nausea and indigestion, never mind accept, is their "us" vs. "them" posture.

We may not all be female, male, Western, non-Western, homosexual, heterosexual, caucasian, non-caucasian, etc. but, again, we are all human.

Real progress is recognizing our common humanity. If pigs, trees, and ants could speak to us they would probably add that real progress is recognizing how all life forms on Earth are interconnected and the same.

If I am wrong then that means that progress can, and sometimes has to be, realized by eradicating something that is in the way. My limited knowledge of history tells me that that was the rationale behind many of the worst crimes against humanity and nature.

While there is nothing much I want to disagree with there, it seems one sided. Whilst there may be no final answers, there must be provisional answers that are accepted as the starting point of any conversation. If we are talking about astronomy, we probably don't want to consider the possibility that the Earth is flat. — unenlightened

Or this has all been a dream and we will all wake up and see that the Earth was flat all along.

The moment we stop asking (or allowing people to ask) questions and generating different answers is the moment we get permanently stuck in ignorance and folly.

Likewise, if we are talking about feminism, we need to acknowledge that it has a history roughly along these lines (this is UK history, there are other stories along similar lines). If it is agreed that there has been a progressive development of equal rights from a prior state of inequality, then we can discuss whether or not we have arrived at the destination of equality, or there is some way to go, or we have overshot the mark to female dominance. — unenlightened

Facts, such as "In November, 2016 Donald Trump was elected President of the United States of America" leave little room for variation (unless we are dreaming and will wake up and see the real facts, or something like that). However, history is not a collection of facts; history must be interpreted. Interpretations must be revised or discarded as new evidence is introduced. Nobody has a monopoly on history.

On the other hand, if you wish to claim, as a certain ex-contributor recently did, that women should not have the vote, then there is not much to talk about. We must have some common ground, and that discussion has been settled a while ago; though there are still flat-earthers out there, they are not worth talking to. — unenlightened

Unless one is an omniscient being and knows everything nothing his/her or anybody else's mind produces can be completely wrong or completely right. And what is right today may be wrong tomorrow. Wasn't it settled in most people's minds that the Earth is at the center of the universe? Were heliocentrists not worth talking to? What is wrong today may be right tomorrow. The belief that humans have free will seems to have been overwhelmingly rejected, but tomorrow may surprise us with evidence that determinism is what is an illusion.

On the other hand, can this claim escape itself? Can the assertion that there are no truths but only truth claims, itself claim to be more than simply a truth claim? — darthbarracuda

Depends on how it is interpreted.

Now I don't want to read into you too much, but the words "radical feminism" followed by a short rant and a comparison between the former and organized, dogmatic religion makes it seem like you had a rough encounter with some of the "vocal" radical feminists when you found that what you thought was innocent or a-moral turns out to make a lot of women very angry. — darthbarracuda

I don't recall any direct interaction with a radical feminist. Only indirect interaction, such as reading a blog.

My experience has been that when discussing gender issues with those who have feminist attitudes my words get distorted by very volatile people who do not listen to what I am trying to say or make any effort to empathize with me and my concerns.

You can't get to truth/reality if people are not going to let your inquiry develop.

It is about being able to fully function intellectually.

What that means is that I often have to tell myself to let people scream, vent, and mock, even if I don't agree with them (or even if I do). They have experiences I don't. They deserve the right to speak their mind. For many, ideology is all they have. Bread fills the stomach but ideology might fill the soul. — darthbarracuda

But then they do not respect other people's right to speak their mind.

This thread is not about feminism--I only brought it up as what made me conscious of what we might be looking at--but if we are going to talk about it let's remember that feminists regularly disrespect men's rights activists even though "MRAs" are simply voicing their concerns, venting their frustrations, etc. They regularly, as I understand it, do whatever they can to silence men's rights activists--pressuring places into not hosting men's rights events; removing "Men's Rights Are Human Rights" signs; etc.

Calling pro-choice people "baby killers" is bad enough. Then we get feminists calling men's rights activists "misogynists", among other things.

Another thing I've noticed is that when people try to silence the noise of a dissatisfied group, it's usually because they don't like what they have to say. One way of doing this is by claiming you have the truth in an even louder voice and killing anyone who disagrees. Another way is to get rid of truth, which effectively pulls the rug right out under the opposition. — darthbarracuda

It is my observation that the people who have sought change who have been most effective are people who appeal to our common humanity. Martin Luther King, Jr. is a good example.

A bumper sticker I saw many years ago said something like this: "Feminsm is the radical notion that women are human".

Preach it, feminists! Preach it!

But you have to see how this sounds to someone who has certain experiences that are more true and wrong than anything else in the world. To them, it is the truth-denier who is the enemy. The truth-denier is suppressing them. The truth-denier is privileged to be able to deny truth! How can they not see it? The truth-denier is preventing real progress, and we're getting impatient! — darthbarracuda

I can empathize.

But making life difficult for those who honestly seek the truth is counterproductive.

Hence why I'm increasingly attracted to the idea of a free and open society, where allegiance to some truth claims does not require everyone else's allegiance. One philosopher that I highly recommend on this topic is Paul Feyerabend, especially his judgment on the place of science in society.

In my opinion, we all need to have a bit more tough skin if we're going to open up and understand each other. — darthbarracuda

A spirit of open, free inquiry is lacking.

If people feel like they have been forced into silence and are not being heard they make their voices heard through, oh, voting Donald Trump into the most powerful position in the world and catching the polling industry, the experts, and the punditry completely off guard, the narrative goes. Sounds about right to me.

Should convicted violent criminals be able to acquire firearms for their personal protection? — Chany

They forfeit their rights when they commit a felony.

That is their own choice.

How about the mentally ill? — Chany

Yes, they should.

The mentally ill are no more likely than members of the general population to kill somebody with a firearm.

They are, however, more likely to be victims of violent crime.

How about minors? — Chany

Their personal protection is the responsibility of their adult legal guardians.

Should I be able to acquire other weapons of war with no more restrictions than aquiring a handgun or rifle? In other words, if I find it necessary and can show that owning grenades could possibly save someone's life in defending themselves? Let's say that, if we never regulated hand grenades and allowed to public to buy them just like any sporting shotgun, one person per year since 1950 would be able to defend their life and their property that would not have been able to otherwise. However, as a result, the number of people who were killed by hand grenades since 1950 caused, on average, an additional 500 deaths per year. Is this grounds for heavily regulating hand grenades, even? — Chany

I can't think of any probable scenario where a hand grenade would be needed for one's personal protection.

The actual argument is that the evidence indicates that the current proliferation and use of firearms is not positive or nuetral. When, statistically speaking, more people get shot, commit suicide, and face other social ills like domestic disputes than guns are used to defend themselves, there is a problem. When owning a firearm makes you supposedly three times more likely to be killed by a firearm, it becomes hard to see why owning a firearm is a justifiable means of self defense that the state is obligated to protect. Even if we doubt the statistics the pro-gun control crowd use, I find it disingenuous to pretend that their argument amounts to "we don't need guns because we have cops." — Chany

No, I have seen people say that gun possession never was a right in the first place.

And I have seen people say that only the military and the police should possess firearms.

That combination is downright foolish. Using foolish is probably being generous. Asinine would probably be more accurate.

Probably none of this would be a problem if such people were accounting for and addressing the facts, such as the fact that in the U.S. a constitutional duty to protect individuals from harm does not exist.

That barely scratches the surface of the problems that the individual-gun-rights-are-a-myth position presents. Nation-states that have committed crimes such as the Holocaust, the removal of Native Americans, etc. can be trusted with guns, but a private citizen who has committed no crime and just wants a handgun in his nightstand next to his bed for his personal protection cannot?! Are they serious?!

There are probably some good ideas being generated in the debate over gun control. But, like any debate, some bad ideas are being generated as well. "You don't need a gun, that is what the police are for" is the worst that I have encountered.

But if you file a suit because the FBI said you were a Moscow agent, and this ruined your business, you'll probably be told to take a walk. — Bitter Crank

Which proves my point: it is foolish to depend on the government, especially with respect to things such as one's personal protection.

Bear in mind a point that was raised earlier: The State has sovereign immunity. It can be sued only if it is willing to be sued. — Bitter Crank

It is my understanding that anybody can sue anybody for any reason. That must be good for business if you are in the legal profession.

The question is about liability, not sueability (is that a word?).

If the government could not be sued then there never would have been DeShaney v. Winnebago in the first place, let alone a ruling on it by the U.S. Supreme Court.

If the Second Amendment is repealed, it won't be by the Federal Government. "The Constitution provides that an amendment may be proposed either by the Congress with a two-thirds majority vote in both the House of Representatives and the Senate and by 3/4th of the states (38) or a constitutional convention called by 3/4th of the states. — Bitter Crank

If the government wants to avoid liability, no such constitutional tinkering is needed. The Supreme Court has already ruled that a constitutional duty to protect individuals from harm does not exist.

But if "you do not need to possess a gun, that's what the police are for" is going to be the spirit of reform, that is setting up the government for a lot of liability.

The anti-gun camp would be wise to discard such language. They should just be honest and say, "We don't like guns". Public opinion is trending in their favor, so foolish gibberish about police protection probably will not be needed for them to get their wish.

I just demonstrated to you why the right to a weapon for self-defence would be irrational. — Metaphysician Undercover

If you want your arguments to be taken seriously, a good start would be to respond to what people have actually said.

I did not say "weapon". I specifically said firearm.

I did not say "self-defense". I said one's personal protection.

I did not even say "own". I specifically said possess.

Whether you plan on firing or merely brandishing it; whether you own or the government is the owner and loans to you; etc. is all irrelevant. The point is that it is being asserted that firearms in the hands of people trained to use them are a must if anybody is going to be protected; that only the military and the police should possess firearms; and that the latter even protects individuals in moments of immediate danger.

No, the military and police, in spite of their exceptional training, will not protect individuals from immediate danger, no matter if they are the only ones in possession of firearms or it is the entire population. They did not protect me when I was robbed at gunpoint or when I was robbed at knifepoint. They showed up after fact.

If possession of a firearm is not needed for anybody to be protected, and if the job of the police and the military is to protect, then nobody needs firearms. Yet, the solution offered by the individual-gun-rights-are-a-myth camp is for the military and the police to possess firearms.

If, on the other hand, possession of a firearm is a must if one is to at all times have the maximum possible protection from immediate dangers, and if the state cannot guarantee such protection--and clearly it cannot (see the aforementioned times I was robbed)--then individual possession of a firearm is an important part of the safety of individuals and the public.

Anyone can claim that anything they want is "justified", but to actually justify it, you must demonstrate why it is right. — Metaphysician Undercover

A right is a justified claim, not a burden of proof.

Your claim though, is that the right to a weapon for self-defence is "universal", and that's why it's irrational. — Metaphysician Undercover

I do not recall ever saying that anything is "universal".

I do recall saying that possession of a firearm for one's personal protection is a human right. In other words, it depends not on being a citizen of a particular state, having a particular status (non-grandparents do not have grandparents' rights), etc. In other words, it is a right that one has simply by being born human.

Possession of a firearm cannot be a universally justified claim--firearms do not exist in all places or times.

No, you've missed the point. The case cited that has caused you such consternation — Hanover

I had not cited a case, let alone said that anything causes me any consternation.

I already knew that governments could not care less about me as an individual human being. I have encountered plenty of evidence that makes it difficult to think otherwise.

The creation of this thread should be enough evidence that I am not shocked or in any way stressed by any "case". I have made it known that I think that it is extremely ignorant, naive and foolish to believe that the police exist for one's personal safety. Yet, I have pointed out, such ignorance, naiveté and foolishness is a big part of the thinking of the individual-gun-rights-are-a-myth camp.

The only thing I had "cited" was a source. The quote that I repeated from that source cites a particular case, but that was not the point. I don't even know anything about that case. The point was that it was just one example of many that anybody could easily find with minimal effort.

I have, however, since then cited a particular case: DeShaney vs. Winnebago County Department of Social Services.

I'm still not convinced by your case. — Bitter Crank

The more that I learn--and I have not stopped researching and thinking about this since the moment I created the thread--the more convinced I become.

Last night I was reading DeShaney v. Winnebago County Department of Social Services very closely.

The way that I understand the ruling in that case, the state has no constitutional duty under the 14th Amendment to protect individuals from private harm that the state played no role in creating. The amendment limits what the state can do; it does not give the state an affirmative duty to act.

However, if the state limits the liberty of an individual, such as when the state incarcerates him/her, then the state does have an obligation to protect and, therefore, may be liable for any harm sustained.

"The affirmative duty to protect arises not from the State's knowledge of the individual's predicament or from its expressions of intent to help him, but from the limitation which it has imposed on his freedom to act on his own behalf... it is the State's affirmative act of restraining the individual's freedom to act on his own behalf - through incarceration, institutionalization, or other similar restraint of personal liberty - which is the "deprivation of liberty" triggering the protections of the Due Process Clause, not its failure to act to protect his liberty interests against harms inflicted by other means." -- DeShaney v. Winnebago County

If that is the precedent then imagine the number of lawsuits there might be if the state takes away the right to possess a firearm. It would make governing impossible.

Even if the government could remove all liability by protecting every individual from harm at all times, the only way that could be done would be to give every individual his/her own personal bodyguard. That is, of course, politically, logistically, and financially impossible, and extremely impractical and awkward for everybody involved.

the police chief is called before the City Council and asked about it with hundreds of angry Peorians screaming about in the room. If the City Council decides to support the police chief despite his decision to not do his job, the next election won't go so well for the councilmen and the mayor. That's how it's done all the time, not through the filing of civil suits demanding damages. In fact, if there were a rebel police chief and city council, would they really care if the City of Peoria were required to pay its tax dollars to a damaged citizen? Would that really alter their behavior? It seems like in this example they don't really care about much.

And all this explains why the police do their job, which is the same reason that everyone does his job, which is that they don't want to get fired because ultimately everyone is accountable to someone. — Hanover

You can't hold anybody accountable if you are dead.

— Metaphysician Undercover

A right is a justified claim.

I am not aware of any conditions under which a claim to the possession of a firearm for one's personal protection would not be justified.

No, what you're missing is the point that there are other ways to regulate conduct other than civil lawsuits. — Hanover

I never said, "Civil lawsuits are a way to regulate conduct", let alone the best way, only way, etc.

Your point is completely irrelevant.

If the Peoria PD decides it no longer wants to protect its citizens, — Hanover

Nobody has said anything about police protecting "citizens".

What has been pointed out is that courts, including the U.S. Supreme Court, have ruled that the government has no legal obligation to protect individuals. The only exception, the courts have ruled, is when there is a special relationship between an individual and the government, such as when an individual is in witness protection.

How do you account for the reality that the police actually do protect people from bad things happening to them? — Bitter Crank

I don't know.

It is beside the point.

We could speculate for pages and pages about that. Among other things, one could take a functionalist perspective and say that for a society to stay together its members have to believe that they are being taken care of, and that the police serve that function. But that is another thread.

The point is that in the U.S. the law has been written and interpreted to say that the government has no legal obligation to protect individuals.

Basically, your own personal safety is your own problem. A firearm can be an effective, and sometimes necessary, tool for an individual to maintain his own personal safety. If your personal safety is your own problem, and if you are not allowed to possess a firearm, now what?

So protecting the "general public" from harm is like public health protecting the people from sickness. It invariably involves individuals. The "general public" doesn't get shot, robbed, hit over the head, or murdered. Similarly, "the public" doesn't get sick. Individuals get sick, so they are vaccinated, one by one. — Bitter Crank

Disease prevention and control, fire protection, police protection, etc. are public goods. If there is a fire at your neighbor's house and the fire department puts it out your house is saved from the fire further spreading, not just your neighbor's. Why should your neighbor pay for fire protection when to save your house you would pay somebody to stop the fire at his house? We resolve that prisoner's-dilema-like problem by making everybody pay for the cost of fire protection.

Therefore, when the fire department stops a fire on your property they are not doing it out of any obligation to you personally. They do it to eliminate a threat to the general public.

I doubt that there is really any discretion in responding to fires. I doubt that the law allows the fire department to respond to a 911 call by saying, "We'll wait and see how fast it is spreading or if there is rain".

But apparently law enforcement does have room for discretion. Therefore, if they choose to turn right and see if there is a drug deal taking place on a sidewalk rather than pull over the car they have been following on the road, and if it turns out that that car had a drunk driver and he hits and kills a pedestrian, you can't say that they failed to protect that pedestrian.

And you can't say that the public was not protected--the police were patrolling public streets and sidewalks.

But at least that pedestrian legally had the right to do everything he could to protect himself from motor vehicles. If he was nearsighted there was not anybody trying to make it illegal to have corrective lenses that could mean him seeing an incoming vehicle sooner and have more time to react.

However, if you are in your home, an intruder has entered the building, and a firearm could neutralize the threat, unlike the pedestrian there are people calling for your right to possess the thing that would help you protect yourself to be taken away.

The police have no legal obligation to you as an individual with respect to any immediate danger you might be in. If they do intervene when you are in immediate danger it is because of their obligation to enforce laws supposedly written to maintain public safety.

No, they can't be in all places at all times. Therefore, they have to use discretion. If they had to protect every single individual--if they had to both pull over the car and investigate the gathering on the sidewalk--that would be impossible. They do what serves special interests and the general sense of public safety.

This is a fairly radical claim. More facts, please. — Bitter Crank

They are not my words.

If you are in danger from the actions of another person, then they are committing a crime, and the police are (I believe) supposed to stop crime. — Bitter Crank

Everything that I am reading suggests that law enforcement discretion is the rule.

And that the government has no duty to protect individuals--the government only has the duty to protect the general public. The only exception is if there is a special relationship between the government and an individual, such as someone in witness protection.

That's how you get protected. — Bitter Crank

Apparently not.

Some of these posts are flirting with denying dignity, equality and other ideals and values that the West supposedly cherishes.

Maybe I have been misled, but it is my understanding that we want a constitutional democracy because we value the dignity and rights of the individual over the wishes of mobs, and that the Bill of Rights in the U.S. Constitution exists to limit the government's ability to infringe on the dignity and rights of individuals, not to empower mobs to see their collective wishes enacted.

Apparently a lot of people think that some abstraction called "public safety" trumps any rights or dignity of individuals. Individuals who are harmed by, say, the loss of (or should I say, end of the upholding of, since some are asserting that no right ever existed in the first place) gun rights will be nothing more than collateral damage in an effort to realize results that greatly exceed their importance, apparently.

Of course, the institutions protecting the individual and upholding his/her rights must be preserved or that protection and those rights may end along with them. Of course, things like the disorder of an out-of-control epidemic of mass shootings can jeopardize those institutions.

But it is not the health of the republic that motivates the anti-gun crowd. They are, as far as I can tell, motivated by nothing more than a personal dislike of guns and are willing to compromise ideals such as human dignity and the rights of individuals in their utopian effort to rid society of one of their least favorite menaces.

Their many fellow citizens who responsibly own guns and are equally appalled by the mass shootings are being disrespected.

The people who have been victims of gun violence by the state, not by their fellow civilians, are being disrespected.

No individual or group can have everything they want. I thought that in the U.S. we have checks and balances to find a happy medium while certain rights are always guaranteed to individuals.

But it looks like individuals and their dignity and rights do not matter in the minds of certain people with respect to firearms. And it looks like their numbers are growing.

Keep in mind that in the U.S. we just recently defeated a push to amend the Constitution to limit marriage to one man and one woman. The strongest argument against such an amendment was that American history had up until that point been about expanding rights or finally upholding rights, not taking away rights. Taking away rights is not the American way, the argument went. But now we have people calling for ignoring the dignity of individuals and for the refusal to recognize a human right, all for the cause of something that they apparently see as exponentially more valuable than any individual: "public safety". It is not much different from how same-sex marriage opponents saw tradition as exponentially more valuable than the dignity and rights of any individual.

The core of the argument is that 1) gun control, up to and including a ban of firearms, would reduce deaths, injuries, and increase social welfare, — Chany

Okay, so collectively there will be greater safety.

Now what about an individual who, consequently, is killed or severely injured by a threat that he/she could have neutralized if the aforementioned gun control had not been enacted?

Is he/she collateral damage?

Collective public safety is greater than the safety of individuals?

We need honest answers to those kinds of questions before we can get any real traction on the issue.

2) owning a firearm is not a right like free expression of ideals or freedom of religion. It is, at best, a civil right whose primary justification- arming a citizen's militia against the federal government- no longer makes sense in a modern context or is not strong enough to warrant the level of protection guns currently have in American society. — Chany

Well, I have never seen that point thoroughly, honestly evaluated, analyzed, debated, etc.

In the United States of America we are talking about a government that through murder and other violence removed the indigenous peoples from its part of North America, leaving only a small percentage of them alive, and continues this policy today.

People can argue that armed citizens have no chance militarily against a state with the military manpower and weapons like those of the United States, but "no longer makes sense in a modern context" is highly debatable.

I have never seen that debate happening, let alone in an honest manner.

If one wants to ban firearms, then one thinks the Second Amendment should be repealed somehow and that people, while having the right to self-defense, do not possess to the right to whatever weaponry they desire. — Chany

The right to self-defense is useless if one does not have the right to the means necessary to effectively defend him/herself from a threat.

The police and their response to crime are ultimately irrelevant to the argument. The core of the argument is reduction in deaths per capita and the fact that owning a gun for either the purpose of either self-defense or defense against a tyrannical government are faulty. — Chany

It is not about "crime".

It is about the threat of being harmed immediately, or the process of presently be harmed.

You specifically brought up the right to bear arms, which was a reference to the 2nd Amendment. — Hanover

No, it was not a reference to the 2nd Amendment.

The individual-gun-rights-are-a-myth camp says that possessing firearms has never anywhere been a right of any kind in the first place. That is a universal, categorical position. It is not a position with respect to any particular law. I am responding to the former, not the latter.

The title of this thread suggests an inconsistency between not protecting your right to bear arms and the state's lack of duty to protect you from crime. — Hanover

The individual-gun-rights-are-a-myth camp does not recognize an individual's right to possess firearms. They see no gun rights of indivduals for them to protect or uphold.

And then they say that only the military and police should be allowed to possess firearms.

In other words, individuals should be disarmed, and only the state should possess firearms.

We are talking about the same state that says that it has no duty to protect individuals from harm.

Yet, the individual-gun-rights-are-a-myth camps says that disarmed individuals who are obeying the law, armed individuals who are not obeying the law, and armed agents of the state is the only morally acceptable scenario--and that it is pragmatically optimal.

I was pointing out that there was no inconsistency because your right to bear arms, to the extent it exists, is not based upon the citizen's right to protect himself from other citizens, but only from the government itself. — Hanover

And I was pointing out that individuals believe that they have the right to possess firearms for their personal protection and that it is a universal right.

I was pointing out that they want that right upheld for good reason: the state has no duty to protect them from harm, and the state says so itself.

There are better solutions to solving the problem of inept police enforcement than deputizing the public to self-police. — Hanover

Again, nobody directly participating in this thread, and nobody referenced to outside of this thread, has said anything about vigilantism, self-policing, etc. It is not about enforcing the law. It is about being protected when in immediate danger.

It is not about the police being inept at enforcing the law. It is about the police having no duty under the law to protect individuals from harm.

They are duty bound to protect you. — Hanover

Apparently that is not what the law says in a lot of places or how courts interpret the law.

The question is how you remedy a failure by the police. The case cited indicates it is not through the civil justice system. — Hanover

Even the U.S. Supreme Court has said that there is no failure--because there is no legal duty--apparently.

I don't know that they have a single monolithic argument, but to the extent they are arguing you lack the right to have guns because there are police there to protect you, they have missed the point of the 2nd Amendment, which is that you have a right to own guns to protect you from the government. — Hanover

They do not say that individuals lack the right to possess firearms because the police are there to protect them. They say that individuals do not need to possess firearms for their protection--that is what the military and the police are for.

With respect to rights, they say that individuals possessing firearms never has been a right.

If someone says that it is stupid, foolish, barbaric, etc. to have individuals in society possessing firearms rather than only the state possessing firearms, and that no right has ever existed in any way, shape, form, etc. for individuals to possess firearms, what an individual might be protected from by possessing firearms is irrelevant to them.

Nonetheless, plenty of individuals assert that they need to possess firearms to ensure their own personal protection from harm. The individual-gun-rights-are-a-myth camp then responds that gun ownership by individuals does nothing to increase safety for those individuals, let alone the general public. It makes everybody less safe, they say.

Do you see what is happening there? They go back and forth between rights and utility. They go back and forth between the individual and the public. The problems/issues at hand, therefore, are obscured.

Outside of all of that back and forth theoretical gibberish is concrete, practical reality: individuals regularly find themselves in immediate danger of being harmed, and not only can the police not be in all places at all times to stop the threat of harm, the law in many places does not obligate the police to stop such a threat.

But again the 2nd Amendment doesn't guarantee you the right to protect yourself from citizens, only the government. Why would the Bill of Rights contain a provision protecting you against other citizens when the reason for independence was due to an oppressive government? — Hanover

Again, individuals believe that they have the inalienable right as humans to possess firearms. Some of them are libertarian anarchists and similar types who do not recognize the U.S. Constitution, let alone any amendment it contains.

When legislatures and courts operating under the U.S. Constitution say that the police have no duty to protect individuals from harm, the authority of the U.S. Constitution on the matter of humans and firearms is further compromised.

This is an argument from policy, asking what is the best way to handle the problem, which I don't have a problem with, but at least realize you're not now arguing from a position of rights. — Hanover

Again, I am responding to the individual-gun-rights-are-a-myth camp. To them it is about rights.

The question then would be: will we have fewer violent crimes if we arm the public than if we require reliance upon the police? If the answer is yes, then I'd be in favor of legislating freer gun access, but if it's not, then I wouldn't. On the other hand, if the 2nd Amendment guarantees the right to bear arms, then I wouldn't care about the policy reasons or the consequences. A right is a right. My hunch is that reduction of gun ownership will reduce violent crime. Call it a strong hunch. — Hanover

It is really simple:

1.) People need to know the facts about social reality before they start saying that a right ought to be taken away or that it ought not be upheld because it never was a right in the first place. The fact in the U.S., apparently, is that individuals are on their own when they are in immediate danger. Even if the latter is not a fact, the fact that the police cannot be in all places at all times remains.

2.) People need to be consistent: is it about inalienable human rights, or is it about the best utilitarian scheme? Is it about individuals, some collective entity called "the public", or both?

3.) People need to be honest. If they do not like guns and would say good riddance to every gun as it is being confiscated, they should say so. Instead of obscuring everything with hairsplitting over militias, crime statistics, political theory, etc. they should just be honest and say, "We do not like guns. We do not trust individuals enough for them to own guns." Then we can have an honest conversation about, say, inalienable human rights versus the rights of groups to try to engineer their ideal society.

The basis for the 2nd Amendment is not to assure the right of vigilantism of every citizen, but to protect you against a tyranical government. — Hanover

Nobody referenced to in this thread or directly contributing to this thread said anything about "vigilantism" until you brought up, let alone that it was the intention of the 2nd Amendment.

The point is that if you are in danger the people who many are saying that other than the military should be the only ones allowed to have guns, the police, have no obligation under the U.S. Constitution or under the law in many states and cities to protect you.

Yet, the argument from the individual-gun-rights-are-a-myth camp is that civilized, free, liberal democratic states have the police and the military and that individual citizens, therefore, do not need guns, let alone have any moral/natural right to possess them.

If a police department is unresponsive or inept, — Hanover

But, again, the argument from the individual-gun-rights-are-a-myth camp is that no right for an individual to possess firearms has ever existed and, besides, you have the police to protect you.

Acknowledging in any way that this police protection may at times not be there is a contradiction within that ideology and makes its whole thought system implode.

Even worse, it is saying individuals are not guaranteed any kind of protection from harm. An individual's protection from harm, it is saying, is dependent on the state deciding to do the individual a favor and allow him to own a gun even though nothing morally requires the state to do so and/or to do the individual a favor and have its police stop the harm even though nothing legally (or morally) requires the state to do so.

corrective efforts should be made, but there's no reason to believe that civil lawsuits are the best or most effective way to regulate the police. Instead of paying off injured parties on a case by case basis, it seems like a state regulator would be better suited than occasional juries. — Hanover

Either way the essence of the matter is not addressed: when an individual is in danger does he/she have the right to be protected from harm?

Even if the police do decide to respond they are not at the location of the danger immediately.

When they do arrive you lose all control over your protection--you must obey the police.

If protection is then in place it does not necessarily mean that it will stop the harm.

And if you are further harmed nobody, apparently, is responsible for the failure of your outsourced protection to prevent that.

Correcting the state's behavior after the fact of you having no protection or ineffective protection that was involuntarily outsourced does nothing to address the fact that an individual's right to protection was not recognized when he was in danger. It also does not guarantee protection to anybody in the future. An individual's protection will still depend on the state deciding to be generous and do him/her a favor.

If, as the individual-gun-rights-are-a-myth camp insists, a right to possess firearms does not protect you, and if you are not at all times protected by the state, then we are left with protection in times of immediate danger not being a right. I do not see how any honest, rational person can accept the latter.

"Right to sue" is irrelevant guff — andrewk

Nobody has said anything about the right to sue, so you are attacking a straw man.

What has been said is that when the police have refused or failed to protect individuals from harm and those individuals have taken legal action the courts have ruled that the police have no obligation to protect individuals from harm.

All that matters is: in what proportion of incidents where police were called to protect somebody being attacked, did they refuse to attend? — andrewk

No, what matters is the law.

And the law, even the U.S. Supreme Court has interpreted it to say, says that the police have no obligation to protect individuals from harm.

Yet, with each new mass murder in the U.S. we have people from all over the world increasingly calling for civilians to be disarmed, for the indivudual's right to bear arms to be seen as a myth that never had any moral or intellectual foundation, and for only the police and the military to be allowed to possess firearms.

The promise of life after death is religion's lure. — CuddlyHedgehog

Actually, it is transhumanism that is promising the conquest of death.

Freedom from religious dogmas originates from acceptance that there is no life after death. — CuddlyHedgehog

Freedom from dogma would mean accepting reality.

This is reality: none of us knows for sure what happens to us after we die.

The biggest change that I think is needed is for people to be honest. Honest with their own selves and honest with each other.

As completely honest as they are capable of being.

Once you are completely honest, such as acknowledging that in the U.S. we are living and progressing with resources made available by the removal of Native Americans, the correct thing to do next will likely fall into place.

We seem to want to live in denial.

Altruism probably cannot begin to flourish in individual and collective deep, intense denial.

So they will undercut their own sales? Fat chance. — schopenhauer1

The sale is already made. The buyer and the weapon are then being monitored.

It would help to have examples that are from the same class as beliefs--maybe the class is "mental content"--but are non-beliefs.

Maybe a feeling is mental content but is a non-belief, for example.

A belief is probably mental content that needs evidence to be disrupted in any way. The deeper the belief is held, the more evidence will be required to disrupt it.