Duty to Inform?

[Jeff Hayes]

If SVG starts a revolution.... I will probably sit that one out....

Trust me when I say we already knew that.

 

[kparker]

Many first nations were voluntyristic and way more peaceful than the warlike tribal Europeans that arrived. That doesn't mean all.

Yes! Consider, for just one example, the Northern Payute.

 

[Perkins]

So if you're thinking that talking to cops is a good idea, I've got the short answer for you: http://www.threefeloniesaday.com/Youtoo/tabid/86/Default.aspx

And I've got the long answer (50 minutes): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wXkI4t7nuc&feature=kp
If you're impatient, the second half is the better half, it starts here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wXkI4t7nuc&t=27m0s (27 minutes)


Oh, and as a side note, since I believe equivocation is the largest long-term threat to America, liberty isn't quite what some of you seem to think. Liberty, as the founders meant it when writing, and as we should be using it today, is specifically the lack of restraint on actions. Specifically the lack of prior restraint on actions, by which I mean that knowing that attacking someone will likely land you in jail does not qualify as a restraint in this case. People always bring up the issue of yelling fire in a theatre, but that actually proves the point quite nicely. Those who would limit liberty should be arguing to gag people as they enter the theatre in order to prevent them from yelling fire later. To the remark 'you can't yell fire in a theatre', the answer is 'Yes, yes you can.' This is opposed to freedom, which is a state of exemption from control, both prior to and after an action. You are not free to yell fire in a crowded theatre, but you are (and should be) at liberty to do so. Freedom should be limited, as we all should be responsible for our actions (and freedom is antithetical to responsibility), however liberty should be unlimited.

Edit: Oops, forgot to add this: http://1828.mshaffer.com/d/word/liberty it's about 50 years after the revolution, but it's the first stricly American dictionary, and the first with modern spellings, so it's much easier to use than the previous ones, and the meanings of words had not changed too much by then, mostly.

As a linguist, focusing in part on comparitave linguistics, I find it fascinating that the only country to succesfully have a revolution such as ours which resulted in a people (mostly) at liberty has a language which allows a distinction between freedom and liberty. Spanish, and French, do not have this distinction; and, when you look at the rapid swings between tyranny and chaos experienced in the French revolution and many of the South American revolutions, I can't help but wonder how much of this is due to the difficulty in communicating this idea. When you argue that your countrymen should be 'libre', and that argument is synonymous with 'your countrymen should be exempt from all law', with no way to easily explain that's not what you mean, of course things won't go so well.

Also, note that while the founders talk about liberty extensively, freedom is only rarely mentioned.

 

[HPmatt]

.... the only country to succesfully have a revolution such as ours which resulted in a people (mostly) at liberty has a language which allows a distinction between freedom and liberty. Spanish, and French, do not have this distinction; and, when you look at the rapid swings between tyranny and chaos experienced in the French revolution and many of the South American revolutions, I can't help but wonder how much of this is due to the difficulty in communicating this idea. ....

Also, note that while the founders talk about liberty extensively, freedom is only rarely mentioned.

Actually the Revolution was mainly the realization by about 1/3 of the citizens that, as ALL Englishmen understood their rights as subjects to the King, the colonies had their own legislatures for about 200 years and they would not submit to a new development to be subservient to the British Parliament.

As Englishmen we adhered to English common law - property rights, rule of law, power of the purse being held by house of burgesses.
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[sudden valley gunner]

Actually the Revolution was mainly the realization by about 1/3 of the citizens that, as ALL Englishmen understood their rights as subjects to the King, the colonies had their own legislatures for about 200 years and they would not submit to a new development to be subservient to the British Parliament.

As Englishmen we adhered to English common law - property rights, rule of law, power of the purse being held by house of burgesses.
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The change of mindset they owed no allegiance to the a man who called himself a king was a huge spark. Many like Adams were initially called a traitor.

 

[sudden valley gunner]

What it boils down to some is they feel it's a top down approach. Our rights come from government and must be "endorsed". Where as freemen, and the liberated know they are inherit and rest within the individual.

 

[HPmatt]

Englishman grew up w this being accepted fact whereas French, Spanish and others did not know the concept of your natural G-d given rights vs what the King allowed you to have That issue is again in play here in US today. Founders saw this from history of governments and built the Constitution and Bill of Rights. The latter being already in place in many of the colonies prior to creation of the Confederation of States and later the Union.


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[JamesCanby]

Complete and utter sidetracking of the Duty to Inform OP



The original request for guidance has turned into the typical philosophical bashing and counter-bashing. It's no wonder people who are looking for help on gun-related issues go elsewhere.

 

[Perkins]

I was not speaking about the cause and nature of the revolution. I was speaking about the nature of the society and government post-revolution. The nature and causes of the revolution are only germane insofar as they influenced the society and post-revolution government. That said, matt is correct in that there are cultural differences; however, I believe he over-estimates the direct significance of these. Both the French and the English were predominantly Christian, with the political ramifications endemic to Christianity. The primary difference relates to the underlying differences in the feudal systems of each country's past. The English approached the feudal system as a strict-contract based system. The vassals would swear to spend a portion of their year labouring on behalf of their leige, and to support him in cerain endeavours. Meanwhile, the leige swore to protect the vassals, and look after their interests in the larger political situation. It was believed that the leige held the right to be the leige (during good behaviour) due to divine right. However, if the leige broke the contract, the vassals would no longer be bound to follow him. When you keep this tradition in mind while examining the underpinnings of the revolution, the colonies had charters (contracts) with the king. These contracts allowed them their own legislature, under the king. Even those who realised they did not need the king's permission to be in America had no reason (and no just cause) to dissolve the contract. (I'm leaving aside the argument that the people in the revolution were not the original parties to the contract and so it had no hold on them; they did not believe that.) So when parliment began abusing the colonies, the legislatures of the colonies appealed to the king, who either refused to take action or openly sided with parliment. The argument amongst the colonists was not so much about the right of the king to rule as it was about whether the king had broken his contractual obligations to the colonies, thereby losing his claim to rule.

Meanwhile, the French position was similar. The leige swears to protect and serve the interests of the vassal and the vassal swears obedience to the leige. The primary difference came in how breaches of the contract were to be handled. Because the majority of French freemen were denied access to weapons and training with weapons, the final recourse available was not armed resistance, but petition to other lords. If it is the king abusing his people, then there is little recourse available. I believe it is this lack of arms on the part of the subjects which led to the bloody nature of the French revolution.

As for the issues today, I believe they arise more from the reverse side of the coin. Matt claims that the question of the origin of rights is at play, and to some extent it is. But on the other side of that same coin is the question of the origin of power and authority. The English believed authority came from God, Jefferson and his ilk believed authority came to the government from the consent of the governed (and indirectly from God, who made all men soverign over their own homes and property, their authority is then delegated to the government). Today we hear that political authority comes from the will of the majority, full stop. Since the one who issues authority determines what the limits of the authority are, they also determine what rights people have. If it is believed that authority comes from God, then the limits on authority also come from God (and rights). This is why Franklin was so terrified of democracy, which in every historical case has derived its supposed authority from the majority.

My point about the linguistic issues in French and Spanish countries, like I said, has little to do directly with the justification of the revolutions. However, the English notion that the king could greatly restrict the freedom of Englishmen, but could not presume them guilty (and therefore could not restrict their liberty), is hardly possible in other languages. When I was taking conversational Spanish, we spent a lot of time discussing philosophy and politics, simply because it was a topic of interest to the students and the topic doesn't really matter in that class. It was incredibly difficult to explain the philosophical basis of America when certain words are simply missing from the language. (No, it is not just that I don't know the words, after class I explained in English to the professor what I was trying to explain, and they said that the words I was wanting are simply not there). I remember a linguistic experiment with a tribe which had no concept of private property in their language. There was a property-related civil case which was tried using their language. The plantiff's lawyer could not even explain what was at issue due to the linguistic limitation. My supposition is that the lack of versitility in these romance languages helped create the culture which led to the failed revolutions. Even if they got copies of Locke's essays translated into French, the translation would lose much of the original meaning.

 

[Perkins]

I believe the original request for help has been fulfilled. So long as the conversation can remain reasonably civil, I find these sorts of discussions to be where a great deal of learning can be obtained by those interested. If the conversation turns uncivil, it will quickly lose value.

 

[sudden valley gunner]

I believe the original request for help has been fulfilled. So long as the conversation can remain reasonably civil, I find these sorts of discussions to be where a great deal of learning can be obtained by those interested. If the conversation turns uncivil, it will quickly lose value.

+1

 

[HPmatt]

Post #45 ties directly back to OP's question about 2A and 4A. Where those Amendments just popped up from is what we've been talking about. When England started cracking down on the colonies, the Bills of Attainder and trial back in England, among the Intolerable Acts, really started to piss off colonists (they really did not think of themselves as Americans for 20 more years)..


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[Perkins]

Well, by the time of the revolution I'd put it at 22 years (and some change) that the notion was brewing (since late 1763). But certainly prior to 1763 the almost universal belief was that the colonists were subjects of the British king. Many of the issues arose out of the parliment's demands to pay for the war via direct taxation of the colonists. (The colonists were quite happy to pay their part for the war, and had already given men, money, and supplies at the behest of the king; they wanted the British main government (either the king or parliment) to tell them how much money was needed to pay their part of the war debt, and leave them to determine how to raise the funds. It is important to note that there was a practical application to this, rather than simply abstract political theory. The taxes proposed by parliment were insufficient to cover the war debt, even had the colonists paid them. Instead the taxes would have covered only slightly more than the interest payments on the war debt. The colonial governments wanted to pay off the principal, not make minimum payments. Even today, the loans taken out by the British to pay for the 7-years/French-and-indian war are still being paid by British subjects.)

 

[HPmatt]

The French and Indian War that young Geo Washington started-" ... I heard the bullets whistle, and, believe me, there is something charming in the sound." 1754


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[Primus]

View attachment 11712

The original request for guidance has turned into the typical philosophical bashing and counter-bashing. It's no wonder people who are looking for help on gun-related issues go elsewhere.

I now suspect that this thread is the record holder for any thread in the history of OCDO for going the furthest off tract from the OP and simultaneously the furthest from the topic of OC, with both being accomplished in the fewest number of posts.

It has my vote.

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[sudden valley gunner]

The irony of those complaining about thread drift while not contributing anything to the OT....is funny.

 

[Perkins]

Neither contributing anything to the original topic, nor to the current (off topic) direction of the thread. But it does occur to me that a meta discussion about OT threads is itself OT, both to the original topic and to the tangentially related topic of the origin of rights.

 

[OC for ME]

<snip> Oh, and as a side note, since I believe equivocation is the largest long-term threat to America, liberty isn't quite what some of you seem to think. Liberty, as the founders meant it when writing, and as we should be using it today, is specifically the lack of restraint on actions. Specifically the lack of prior restraint on actions, by which I mean that knowing that attacking someone will likely land you in jail does not qualify as a restraint in this case. People always bring up the issue of yelling fire in a theatre, but that actually proves the point quite nicely. Those who would limit liberty should be arguing to gag people as they enter the theatre in order to prevent them from yelling fire later. To the remark 'you can't yell fire in a theatre', the answer is 'Yes, yes you can.' This is opposed to freedom, which is a state of exemption from control, both prior to and after an action. You are not free to yell fire in a crowded theatre, but you are (and should be) at liberty to do so. Freedom should be limited, as we all should be responsible for our actions (and freedom is antithetical to responsibility), however liberty should be unlimited.

It appears that you schooling interfered with you education. What a load of crap. Yelling fire in a movie theater must not be unlawful. If yelling fire injures another where no fire exists then the injured citizen needs to prove harm and seek a redress. The proper role of government is to mediate not mandate. <snip> [/QUOTE]Anyway, informing a cop you are packing is asking for trouble.....don't talk to cops.

 

[sudden valley gunner]

Neither contributing anything to the original topic, nor to the current (off topic) direction of the thread. But it does occur to me that a meta discussion about OT threads is itself OT, both to the original topic and to the tangentially related topic of the origin of rights.

I agree some are not connecting the dots.

 

[sudden valley gunner]

I am not sure about liberty not being translated well into Spanish. Libertad, libre etc. Liberty comes from latin, Spanish, French, Italian and many of the Southern European languages are latin based.

Bastiat wrote some great natural law liberty books in French.

A few Spanish Monks and priests wrote some great books on liberty in the 14th and 15th centuries long before Locke.