Post Archive
Region: Libertatem
Also super-oppressive. But I see your comedic point, we can't ban everything.
Pevvania
That's a joke, right?
Tell me it's a joke.
Too many actually do subscribe to that type of logic for my tastes.
There are those in congress who would do away with the Bill of Rights in its entirety in order to advance their goals, and to me that's just incredibly sad.
I can see why the Second is a point of contention to some, but when not even the First is safe, I just don't know what to say anymore.
Sweden And Finland
Your rights end where you begin violating the rights of others. Natural rights-based ancap theory, as described in Murray Rothbard's seminal The Ethics of Liberty, describes a retributionist system of punishment so that the punishment is equal to and double the value of the crime, for both the crime committed and for the amount that the victim's rights were violated. However, under such a system the victim would have the choice of whether to have the maximum punishment inflicted, or to lower the amount of punishment, or to forgive the criminal. In a libertarian society, a criminal would be apprehended by a private policing agency or a bounty hunter, taken to a court operated by a private adjudication firm and tried as normal.
Lies, lies, and more lies.
1. The UK has never had a gun culture nor a particular problem with homicides, however, the UK has seen a steady increase in murders over the past fifty years as gun control laws have tightened. Up to the late 80s, if you lived in Britain you could buy an AR-15 and many other semi-automatic rifles. After they were banned, murders began increasing. In 1996-97, almost all pistols were banned. In the seven years after the ban, gun crimes doubled and homicides increased by 50%. Murders only began to decrease after the government started threatening people who owned guns with 10-year prison sentences in 2007, which is pretty barbaric. Still, your precious gun control could not stop the Cumbria Shootings in 2010, which led to 16 deaths and dozens of injuries. Gun control in the UK, at best, has been a failure; at worst, it has caused the deaths of hundreds of people.
2. "hell all of Europe has gun control laws" - misleading, perhaps even a lie. First of all, every country has some level of gun control, including America, but it just has less than most others. Secondly, to suggest that all of Europe has stricter gun laws than the US is total BS. The continent has varied levels of gun control - but generally most European nations have relatively civilized gun laws and high levels of gun ownership compared to the rest of the world. In Iceland, a third of its citizens are armed, and murders are some of the lowest in the world, while there has only been a single police shooting on record. Norway, Sweden, Finland and Denmark all protect the right to keep and bear arms. And of course, Switzerland is a country with the second- or third-highest rate of gun ownership behind the US, mandates that military-age males keep an automatic rifle at home and has generally very liberal gun laws. It has the lowest crime rate in the world. Canada has heavier gun control laws than the US, but still allows you to buy an AR-15 and a bunch of other weapons, and has 0.5 homicides per 100,000 people per year. You're looking for a correlation that does not exist.
3. Neither India nor Japan have ever had a culture of gun ownership, and India still has roughly the same number of homicides as a percentage of population than the US. Japan doesn't have much crime.
Tyrinth, Kings Island, Rateria, Reaganomic Nws
You're right, too many people believe that oppressive policies will help us. But we know that oppression will only make problems worse.
Impressive.
Just curious, you have sources for all that sitting around, or you just pull all that off of the top of your head?
Good question.
When Pev comes down on the liberal nonsense ❤❤❤❤❤
Miencraft, Kings Island, Pevvania, Humpheria, Muh Roads
I am very good at memorizing statistics. But yes, I have sources.
UK homicides and gun control: http://johnrlott.blogspot.co.uk/2012/12/so-did-piers-morgan-and-christiane.html
The rest: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overview_of_gun_laws_by_nation
I have at lot more gun control sources on my computer, but it's broken at the moment. I've also started making a factbook that you can view now with a bunch of gun statistics. I personally created two scatter graphs detailing gun murders to gun control and gun ownership by US state. One graph has no correlation, and the other shows a strong one in favour of light gun laws as protection from murder.
Tyrinth, Kings Island, Rateria
My parents own a house in Florida that I once lived in. I was speaking to my father the other day, who is a property developer, about what he sets the rent at. He told me that he sets it slightly below the market value of rent in the area, because the low price attracts tenants and entices them to stay longer, meaning that my father derives a steady stream of income from the house, and the fact that tenants stay longer means that he doesn't have to be constantly paying 'finder's fees' to the local real estate companies. So, free market competition encourages low prices that benefit both the landlord, my father, and the tenants. The only one who doesn't benefit is the middle man, but they have thousands of other rented properties to allocate tenants to.
Kings Island, The American Empire In Libertatem
A Brief Case for Guns, Part I - Rights
The problem with gun control advocates is that they care as little about people's rights as they do about facts and sound empirical evidence. Their views are formed from knee-jerk emotional reactions and molded by the media. From the viewpoint of civil society advocates and civil libertarians, the right to self defense is one of the cornerstones of a free society, alongside the right to trial by jury, right to equal treatment under the law, freedom of speech, worship and expression, the right to privacy and so on. Under a society in which government is limited and people's rights are respected, the right to bear arms is a barrier between the individual and an oppressive state, as much as laws protecting individuals from government in the realms of speech, the press and trial by jury are. Without such protections against the state, the individual is at its mercy, and when a country's political system begins to collapse, the ensuing turmoil can be exploited by governments to launch oppressive regimes that can do very bad things. The most infamous dictators in history all restricted weapons possession early in their power to tighten their control of the populace and make totalitarian control easier. Hitler banned Jews from owning guns. Stalin banned Ukrainians from owning guns. Mao banned Tibetans from owning guns. Pol Pot banned intellectuals, the religious and urban workers from owning guns. Actually, most of these men banned guns altogether.
History speaks for itself. The result is the same: if you don't limit government, government will limit you. Firearm ownership is not different. And to those that point to western countries that have enacted gun control and proclaim that their governments have not become totalitarian states, this does not change anything - the point is that taking away guns from citizens allows governments to become totalitarian. Instability, economic collapse and policy failure are the most common causes of totalitarian states. The Weimar Republic was a democracy, but when its currency collapsed, the stage was set for Adolf Hitler to take power. Even in modern western countries, government atrocities still happen. In the United States, government has proved that it can and will massacre citizens if necessary, with the bombing of Philadelphia, the Waco Siege and the thousands of police murders that happen every year acting as potent recent examples. The right to bear arms is needed in the US more than ever.
The answer to this is that an insurgency equipped with basic firearms could not defeat a government equipped with tanks, aircraft and nuclear weapons. This is an asinine point. No war is won based on technology alone. Myriads of other factors determine the outcome of a war. If technology alone can win a war, then what explains the stalemate in Afghanistan, or the Communist victory in the Vietnam War - or even the defeat of the British in the American Revolutionary War? A well-equipped American insurgency alone would be able to fight and win against the federal government if it had the support of the people and had a just cause. The American firearm deterrent was enough to dissuade the Japanese from invading the US mainland. As one Japanese general said - "We cannot invade America, because there will be a rifle behind every blade of grass." Going further back, gun control first arose in the United States to protect slavery. As a graduate of civil rights history, I can tell you for a fact that the Reconstruction Period and afterwards was a time of constant fear for black Americans, who were systematically disarmed through 'black codes', the Jim Crow laws and violent raids by the Ku Klux Klan and similar groups. A part of the African-American struggle for freedom that is scarcely known is the role guns had to play in it, and the thousands of blacks around the United States that used guns as a means of empowerment against white supremacy. Martin Luther King Jr. frequently used the 2nd Amendment to protect himself. When he was in Birmingham, Alabama during the famous civil rights struggle there, one account describes his house as "an arsenal". The desire to protect gun rights to protect the individual from the state is not paranoia, it is a very rational concern, and any layman history enthusiast would agree.
And on another level, particularly from the perspective of natural rights, what right does anyone have to tell you what weapon you can or can't own? If we assume that individuals own themselves - which is true, because the body is controlled by the mind alone, and thus owned, and ownership implies that the owner can do whatever it wishes with the justly owned property as long as it does not harm anyone else's property - then every individual has the right to own a gun as long as he does not use it to initiate aggression. In the same way, the right to self-ownership allows individuals to evade taxes or any other form of coercion, and consume drugs or whatever he or she wishes as long as it does not harm anyone else. Gun ownership does not harm anyone. It is safeguard against aggression, both from government agents and common criminals.
Even if you do not wish to own a gun, or even if you dislike guns, you must support the protection of gun ownership and the right to self-defense if you support a just, free and fair society, and if you support the concept of human civilization itself, which withers away and dies in the absence of strong protection of property rights.
Miencraft, Kings Island, Humpheria, Right-Winged Nation, Rateria, Zauaria, Reaganomic Nws
Real estate finder's fee? I'd like to introduce you to the good ol' 'merican "for rent" sign. =P
International Union For Peace
Post self-deleted by Reaganomic Nws.
Oh, nice. Took me awhile to find this post.
How many times do I have to remind liberals that guns don't kill people, that people kill people with any instruments available? Sorry, but the gun panic is just ridiculous.
Rateria
ATTENTION ALL NATIONS
This a statement on behalf of the Minister for Defence, [nation]New Nationale Einheit[/nation] in the Central Pacific Empire:
Due to several threats received by our region, special precautionary measures have been put in place for the safety of the members of the Central Pacific Empire and guests to the upcoming Inaugural Festival of the CPE. We now ask that all nations in this region who wish to attend make it known to your Founder or WA Delegate who is asked to put together a list of nations coming and send it to the Minister for Defence, [nation]New Nationale Einheit[/nation] or the Prime Minister, [nation]Latin and Central America[/nation]. Please do this as soon as possible.
Thanks in advance for your cooperation and apologies for the long announcement,
There will be beer [nation=short+noflag]Pevvania[/nation]!
Pevvania, Yankee Freedom Fighters, Midland County, Reaganomic Nws
Views on Immigration?
Tear down the walls!
Pevvania, Muh Roads, International Union For Peace
Reasons?
I am tempted to reply: "Mr. Reagan said so", but I don't want to sound like a little kid. :P
My stance on immigration is inversely related to the number of social programs and entitlements in effect.
Sweden And Finland
Hello all.
Do you have a RP year and month guideline here?
Sweden And Finland
The arguments against gun-control were good, for the first time in my life I saw libertarians use facts.
Anyways I would like to attract the attention of all Libertartem nations to a much serious issue. As you all must be aware of a change in citizenship laws. The new laws include answering 15 of a 20 question questionnaire correctly. Well, I applied for one, and got a questionnaire, the thing is that questionnaire is just too difficult, it is easier to get into an ivy league college than answer these questions.
One of the questions include asking about what law was it that was repealed in April 2014, i mean how would a nation just arriving in libertartem be able to answer that.
I request the governing members of Libertartem to please consider my argument and bring in place a better process.
Wow, guns don't kill people, that is a first.
Wow, guns don't kill people, that is a first.
Hopefully it's been produced by the private sector...and is it tax-free?
Kings Island, Pevvania, Right-Winged Nation
The government is not your enemy, if it is, change your government at the ballot box. States with a strong constitution don't collapse overnight. The most infamous dictators also had a flag, a military, a dress, should we ban all things used by most infamous dictators, in fact the most infamous dictators also had traffic laws, should we then not use traffic laws? Guns control laws exist in U.K., India and Japan, are they dictatorships? Banning guns by popular consent makes no one a dictator.
Government is not limited in Scandinavian countries, are they enjoying a miserable life?[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nordic_model]. No, there is absolutely no co-relation proved till date between gun-control laws and totalitarian states, if you have a source, state it. Ok, let me introduce you to the concept of civilization, if policemen shoot people, you protest, write letters to your representatives, pressurize the government, hold signature campaigns, not just buy a gun and shoot that damn policeman, this is not the wild west, as much as you would like it to be.
First of all, the defense of the US, should be in the hands of its defense forces not its militias. Disarming blacks while allowing Klu Klux Klan to be armed was the problem, you caught the solution by its tail, if white supremacy groups didn't had arms, then there would have been no fear. Blacks needed weapons, because the whites had weapons, if the white supremacists didn't have weaapons, no one would need them.
Using the argument of natural rights, once the Southern farmers justified slavery, it was their natural right to own slaves if they wished to, anyways beleive me you have the natural right to live wherever you want to, why should it be limited by your economic ability, you have the right to a good life, why should it be limited by your economic ability? This is true liberalism to attain true freedom and liberty, irrespective of one's situation, the freedom to live the way we want, without having to lick the boots of a billionaire who inherited all his wealth from his high flying dad. This is true liberty---SOCIALISM, anyways I agree that owning guns would be a natural right, unless the production of that gun required the use of public services(eg-ROADS, MILITARY DEFENSE, FED, LOCAL POLICE). If you can create a gun without using public resources, then you have the right to gun ownership.
Gun ownership =/= self defense. Civiization exists in Communist countries, don't give that property BS.
Militias are defense forces. Historically important ones in the case of the United States, actually.
You can play with hypotheticals all you want, but the fact of the matter is people will always be armed -- the important questions are: who and with what? Firearms have the interesting feature of putting everyone on relatively equal ground unlike some weapons of the past.
That is not at all what this argument states. Frankly, I wonder how biased you would have to be going into reading that in order to come to such a conclusion.
Perhaps I need not wonder.
I wonder how far you would support this. If I were to claim I could make a submachine gun without assistance from public services, would you support my ownership of it?
Miencraft, Kings Island, Pevvania, Rateria
Militias are defense forces of the uncivilized, this is the 21st century and America is not in a civil war.
People are not always armed in U.K., Japan or India(not a hypothetical, is it?). Firearms can put everyone on equal ground only if everyone can afford to buy the best available firearm on the market, not everyone would be able to buy a firearm, and even if they do some would still have more expensive and better firearms than others(just like cars).
I would support your ownership of even a Nuke, if you can do so without using public services.
This glorious free market also caused the US subprime mortgage crisis.[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subprime_mortgage_crisis]. Perhaps you should explain people who experienced foreclosures, that how awesomely your father and his tenant lives under free market. It worked for you does not implies it works.
I was actually thinking of the revolutionary war when I wrote that, but that's a moot point. Your view of them does not change the fact that they are a defense force. This entire line of course presumes your assertion of who "should" be handling things was correct.
Was I being unclear? People are armed in all those places. Again, who and what -- the questions you must ask.
You don't need the best in order to benefit. The way in which firearms act as equalizers is that your relative size, strength, or skill matters far less with a firearm than with any other type of weapon. They place a seventy-year-old grandmother on roughly equal ground with a thirty-year-old male bodybuilder -- something that cannot be said about things like swords, bats, knives, bows, etc.
Somehow I doubt that, but I also doubt it's worth pressing.
I've just received my summer internship earnings. My net salary is worth 87,37% of my gross salary. Income tax, unemployment, maternity and retirement contributions included. God bless Switzerland.
Kings Island
No, we don't really RP.
Sweden And Finland
Why not?
Not enough people here get into it.
I, personally, would love to RP, but nobody's interested.
There were a few attempts at RP a while back but they fell apart pretty quick because nobody cared.
Sweden And Finland
What is a RP??
Sweden And Finland
Roasted Potato
Pevvania, The New United States, Hallo Island, Rateria, Midland County, Sweden And Finland
Ha. Haha. Hahaha. No.
It's that way for a reason.
Miencraft, Kings Island, Sweden And Finland
I mean... it's an open book test.. answers are right there.
Miencraft, Kings Island, Humpheria, Midland County, International Union For Peace, Sweden And Finland
Yup.
Exactly 0 answers cannot be obtained by reading things. It's all just reading the laws.
Kings Island, Midland County, International Union For Peace, Sweden And Finland
Actually i didn't knew that, so failed.
Sweden And Finland
Post self-deleted by Hallo Island.
I appreciate your snark.
Sweden And Finland
Maybe you could read our laws. :)
Miencraft, Humpheria, Rateria, The American Empire In Libertatem, Sweden And Finland
Okay, thank you.
Rateria, Sweden And Finland
A line from the citizenship agreement which you read and agreed to:
"There is no time limit for the test and you may use any resources available to you to assist in completing the test."
Humpheria, Rateria, International Union For Peace, Sweden And Finland
My mistake.
Rateria, Sweden And Finland
Could I reserve Sweden, Finland, and Norway on the map for when I gain citizenship?
I remember, a few years ago, when the maths department at my school were thinking about making all maths tests open-book and trialled it on my year. That test had the lowest average test scores of all the tests we did that year.
Heh, I forgot to be put on the map.
Sweden And Finland
He was being sarcastic.
You are supposed to read and understand them all before you apply. That is a grounds for rejection.
International Union For Peace
You have violated the rule: "You are not allowed to reveal the questions on the test to anyone during or after your test." This is part of the Citizenship Agreement which you have accepted by applying for citizenship. If you have any queries regarding the test you are supposed to talk to the Manager of Internal Affairs, Miencraft, via telegram. You are not supposed to vent your frustrations on the RMB where potential non-citizens may be lurking.
Kings Island, Hallo Island, International Union For Peace
I think I already claimed those.
Sweden And Finland
Kennesaw, Georgia, the city renowned for its mandatory gun ownership law had violent crime at 75% below the state average in 2012. Interesting.
It's not any better to force people to have guns than it is to take them away. It still restricts the liberty of the people who don't want them.
Rateria
I totally accept that I don't agree with the law but simply find it interesting that the violent crime statistics are so much lower than most other places in Georgia when at least one person in every family has a gun.
Rateria
http://www.playbuzz.com/felixstablum10/the-definitive-political-orientation-test
Right Libertarian
Oh, man, I totally forgot to mark that as a pending change. Got the request archived and everything but just totally forgot about it. I think you sent it while I was on vacation.
Also, I don't have anything from KI about a map request archived. Perhaps, KI, you requested something before becoming a citizen? Or maybe I didn't see it and it got removed by a flood of business telegrams.
Anyways, map's gonna be sorted out now.
Great! I'd like united Korea again :)
Rateria
You know what else I forgot about? My radio station.
That's updated now too.
Oh, and one last thing: Remember that if the Earth's landmass isn't good enough for your country, I'll build one and put your country on it. I just need to know what I'm building, where it is, and how big it should be, preferably with some sketch to go off of.
Just going to say this as you seem to be on the topic of guns, Marx was pro guns.
Pevvania
Well, I'd really like Ireland, but it's taken.
You wanna know a fun solution to this problem?
Make your own map!
Would be nice to have some competition, though it does make sense as to why people would prefer a single map.
I got Right Libertarian also, but I feel a few of the questions were loaded, I was right on the line of anarchism.
I guess Karl Marx was right for once. Guns are necessary to protect myself from transphobes.
Not to sure about your claim about Mao banning guns, I know that most Chinese people had access to guns anway.
I am also pretty sure guns were under some degree of control (1928) before Hitler even got into power.
I'm a left libertarian... I can see myself in the left-wing in the US, but that's a fairly wide window to be frank ranging from full blown commies to corporatists within the Democrat Party with my economic stances being more capitalist than anything.
Sorry messed up my quote.
I am also pretty sure guns were under some degree of control (1928) before Hitler even got into power.
Rateria
Democrats?
Communist?
I hope you don't mean that.
In a US-centric view, the left is a very wide area. Not all Democrats in the US are anti-capitalist, but all anti-capitalists in the US vote Democrat if they don't want their vote to go to waste.
Correct you are.
"Under no pretext should arms and ammunition be surrendered; any attempt to disarm the workers must be frustrated, by force, if necessary." - Karl Marx
I'm pretty sure Mao banned 'em.
"A review of official CCP documents will find many orders banning private ownership of weapons before during and after its final victory in 1949. See for an early example,
"Inspecting for and Banning of Privately Owned Firearms, and Prohibiting the Unauthorized Wearing of Military Uniforms" (Council of People's Commissars April, 1933) Mao's Road to Power - Revolutionary Writings 1912-1949 Volume IV Rise and Fall of the Chinese Soviet 1931-1934, p377.
http://history.stackexchange.com/questions/10693/is-there-any-evidence-chairman-mao-restricted-or-confiscated-guns
"All political power comes from the barrel of a gun. The Communist Party must command all the guns; that way, no guns can ever be used to command the party." - Mao Zedong
Gun control laws existed previously, I think, but banning Jews from owning firearms was implemented in 1938.
Rateria
Hallo Island has invaded Scandanavia Huehuehuehuehuehuehuehuehuehuehue
We could play that map game again.
Pev, it is not letting me look at your source:
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=jJ9yAAAAMAAJ&q=Inspecting+for+and+Banning+of+Privately+Owned+Firearms&dq=Inspecting+for+and+Banning+of+Privately+Owned+Firearms&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CB4Q6AEwAGoVChMI2o_-y5X3xgIVzFoUCh3JSAoK
http://maoistrebelnews.com/2011/10/07/pro-gun-activists-lie-about-chinese-gun-ownership/
I'd start one up again but I have no relevant story.
Time to go come up with one!
There are some pretty frivolous land claims on there, so go ahead and put me down for what's left of russia.
Well, thank you for mentioning that. I've just discovered that I'm a left-libertarian too !
Post self-deleted by Pangaean Debating Emissary.
Ehh guess you are correct there.
Send me a telegram about this and with a color so I can archive it and remember it later. I'm tired now and I need to not be tired.
RWN is looking for world domination
Hi everyone.
?
Can I have it?
Heh, those are fun. God mode for everyone! :)
Sweden And Finland
YOUR AMBITIONS WILL BE FRUITLESS.
Sweden And Finland
Comrade, YOU ARE TOO LATE!!!!!
Sweden And Finland
POLITICAL-BOT'S Android Army cannot be beaten by fragile fleshed humans.
Surrender now. You will be OBLITERATED.
If everyone is in God mode then Lord Roads must be in Titan mode.
Muh Roads
Time to call the avengers
DEMOCRACY IS NON-NEGOTIABLE.
Political-Bot, Rateria, Sweden And Finland
It's time to bring some democracy!
FREEDOM IS MANDATORY
Tyrinth, Political-Bot, Rateria, Sweden And Finland
Lol. That sounds odd.
Sweden And Finland
LIBERTY PRIME IS ONLINE.
Sweden And Finland
AND IT SHALL BE ENFORCED ON THE PEOPLE BY ANY MEANS NECESSARY
Miencraft, Rateria, Sweden And Finland
Damn. The citizenship test is giving me a headache. :P Good job, Miencraft, liberty at its finest.
Sweden And Finland
Heh.
It's mostly copy-pasting of stuff out of the laws, you should be fine.
Sweden And Finland
Do children naturally have rights that supersede those of their parents/guardians? Does a child have a right to be fed, for instance, that supersedes his/her parent's liberties?
If so, (and this question is targeted primarily at AnCaps) how would those rights possibly be protected, in the absence of the state?
(I know Rothbard talks about this topic in The Ethics of Liberty, which I really want to read, but my reading list is kind of backed-up at the moment)
Assembled with Dot's Region Saver.
Written by Refuge Isle.