Gun rights?

[Ele'ill]

Oppression has cultural elements. Dogs don't have culture. They can be abused, which I personally find distasteful in the extreme, but not oppressed.

they can be oppressed from doing dog like things. Dogs wanna be dogs- to the best of their abilities.

Alright, during domestication, which canine languages were suppressed, which canine religious practices were banned, which canine nations were destroyed?

It was an attempt at an entire species. All of the above.

Well for a start, even crop farming kills animals. All that nice land that's being used to grow all those lovely fruits and grains occupies space and consumes resources that other animals could have had.

Yeah, I know. Again I am expecting more of a technocratic vision from you unless 'lol industry rulez' is the main bass line to your ideas.

Oh right, I should have been thinking about that ludicrous concept instead of another.

So is the reamp of industrial processes after a revolution going to be the technocats putting christmas lights up on smoke stacks or do you have real ideas other than piggy backing in on what planet killing earth traitor capitalists have done to justify the lifetime spent reading sci fi in mum's cellar

I suppose humour is as diverting a way as any for covering for a lack of argumentation...

No you don't understand she actually did

[No_Leaders]

You don't know what oppression means. How many dog cultures have been destroyed by domestication?



Nope. Animals would still be dying for the sake of humans, even in a communist society where everyone is vegan. Can you begin to work out why?



They are not all the same, that is a gross over-simplification and also ignores the historical roots and social contexts of those phenomena. What you're going on about is hyper-liberalism, nothing revolutionary.



Because species is not an "arbitrary, irrelevant distinction". Try teaching even the smartest dog algebra or how to compose music and you will see what exactly I mean.



No religion or metaphysics required, see above. My position is based on directly observable species-traits, which contrary to your assertions are neither arbitrary nor meaningless.

Oh okay, so animals being tortured as test subjects for capitalist products, vivisection, throwing helpless animals onto the ground beating them with clubs to break their bones and proceeding to skin them alive for their fur to profit the fur industry, yeah such terror isn't oppression is it? Electrocuting cows/pigs with prods over their body, stomping, kicking, punching, defenseless animals sure isn't oppression. Animals don't want to be confined to test labs, or confined to small cramped inclosures and beat and tormented since they're "lesser" beings to humans, you think that's justifiable simply because they cannot talk? or tell us "stop" or because the local neighbor's dog down the street can't do an algebraic equation or contribute to metaphysics.

The issue is for however many years of your life you're taught it's alright to treat animals as lesser because they're not as "intelligent" as us, or that they're simply there for our entertainment in zoos, or circuses, and they're main reason here is to be slaughtered by humans. Might be easy to goto your local store get a pound of ground beef without thinking of what kind of torment the animal went to cause god knows humans sure love their hamburgers and steaks! Just like it's easy for people to pickup nikes or other useless material possessions without a thought of the workers who worked them, what kind of conditions they were coerced into, whether child labor, or sick or old working 12 hour days for 15 cents a day just to give us this wonderful product!

It is not a gross over-simplification, these things are connected they're various forms of oppression that are different layers of part of the same society us as humans have been living in. It's elitism, it's hierarchical structures and it's dominance. Whether it's the rich dominance over the poor or the few elite over the many, male dominance at home with patriarchy, or white privileged dominance over non-whites, hetero dominance over gay and transgender, it's all ingrained in a capitalist society, it's all a system of coercion. No one is above another, not the local pig because he has a badge and a gun, not the local landlord, not a human being above an animal.

There shouldn't be dominant based relationships between each other nor animals. The hierarchical structures in society says it's okay, but take a look outside your bubble and you might realize there is something incredibly fucked up with a society that thinks it's alright to torture animals and use them as test subjects because their life's are lesser than human lives somehow. I'm sure if we had research facilities where humans were test subjects with tubes being surgically inserted into their face, or having chemicals dripped into their eyes, or chemicals forced into their stomach,injected, products rubbed into their skin, etc. there would be much outcry over such things. Yet humans think it's quite alright to test household cleaners/ingredients, cosmetics, drugs, so on and so on. Hell people like Descartes tried to justify the notion that animals don't feel pain and used vivisection on rabbits and dogs.

It's not a matter of things being like us, it's a matter of them having the capacity for suffering; if there were hypothetically an alien creature totally unrelated to anything on earth, but it was sentient, I would say it was worthy of being treated like we'd treat any other intelligent being. The same should be for animals.

[Invader Zim]

Apply the same logic to fetuses and you end up being anti-choice, no?

No. I am saying that animals have rights because the human societies in which we live, as in you and I (it is not universal), have assigned them rights. These are enshrined in law, based on the ethic and morals which our societies have evolved to incorporate. For instance, while we do not assign animals the right to life, necessarily, they are assigned the right to a certain standard of existence. Therefore, in the UK, am#nimals have the right to live without being subjected to sadistic cruelty by people. That is a right enshrined in law, because animals have been granted certain welfare rights. This is a statement of fact, not political preference. You might well believe that animals should have no rights, some rights, or the full rights extended to human being - which are all legitimate views. However, as it stands regardless of your views, animals do have a number of legally enshrined rights. And this is indisputable, failure to abide by the laws enshrining those rights can lead to the prosecution of those who transgress them.

The same can be said of fetuses. While you, or I, may disagree with assigning of rights to fetuses after a certain period of development, it does not alter the fact that society as a whole has assigned them rights after that point and employs the full weight of the law to enforce those rights against those who would deprive them. This is an objective fact. What we argue is that the assignment of those rights should be revoked, for various reasons, or that the rights of the fetus' mother should have entire and complete precedence - but this is an opinion as opposed to a fact. If, a majority of society came to accept our arguments, and the law were to change, then those rights would cease to exist because society has ceased to assign them.

Does that suitably clarify my point?

[l'Enfermé]

No. I am saying that animals have rights because the human societies in which we live, as in you and I (it is not universal), have assigned them rights. These are enshrined in law, based on the ethic and morals which our societies have evolved to incorporate. For instance, while we do not assign animals the right to life, necessarily, they are assigned the right to a certain standard of existence. Therefore, in the UK, am#nimals have the right to live without being subjected to sadistic cruelty by people. That is a right enshrined in law, because animals have been granted certain welfare rights. This is a statement of fact, not political preference. You might well believe that animals should have no rights, some rights, or the full rights extended to human being - which are all legitimate views. However, as it stands regardless of your views, animals do have a number of legally enshrined rights. And this is indisputable, failure to abide by the laws enshrining those rights can lead to the prosecution of those who transgress them.

The same can be said of fetuses. While you, or I, may disagree with assigning of rights to fetuses after a certain period of development, it does not alter the fact that society as a whole has assigned them rights after that point and employs the full weight of the law to enforce those rights against those who would deprive them. This is an objective fact. What we argue is that the assignment of those rights should be revoked, for various reasons, or that the rights of the fetus' mother should have entire and complete precedence - but this is an opinion as opposed to a fact. If, a majority of society came to accept our arguments, and the law were to change, then those rights would cease to exist because society has ceased to assign them.

Does that suitably clarify my point?

Ah now I catch your point, thanks for the clarification comrade.

[Luís Henrique]

No. I am saying that animals have rights because the human societies in which we live, as in you and I (it is not universal), have assigned them rights. These are enshrined in law, based on the ethic and morals which our societies have evolved to incorporate. For instance, while we do not assign animals the right to life, necessarily, they are assigned the right to a certain standard of existence. Therefore, in the UK, am#nimals have the right to live without being subjected to sadistic cruelty by people. That is a right enshrined in law, because animals have been granted certain welfare rights. This is a statement of fact, not political preference. You might well believe that animals should have no rights, some rights, or the full rights extended to human being - which are all legitimate views. However, as it stands regardless of your views, animals do have a number of legally enshrined rights. And this is indisputable, failure to abide by the laws enshrining those rights can lead to the prosecution of those who transgress them.

I suppose the law also forbids people from destroyng public or private property in the UK (and that those who fail to abide to such legal provisions can be prosecuted and sentenced). But how does that mean that a house, or a statue, has "rights"?

The same can be said of fetuses. While you, or I, may disagree with assigning of rights to fetuses after a certain period of development, it does not alter the fact that society as a whole has assigned them rights after that point and employs the full weight of the law to enforce those rights against those who would deprive them. This is an objective fact. What we argue is that the assignment of those rights should be revoked, for various reasons, or that the rights of the fetus' mother should have entire and complete precedence - but this is an opinion as opposed to a fact. If, a majority of society came to accept our arguments, and the law were to change, then those rights would cease to exist because society has ceased to assign them.

This would be an excessively juspositivist notion of "rights".

Luís Henrique

[Ele'ill]

Take your disgusting ideology out of my dinning table, please.

Luís Henrique

It is so weird when people approach vegetables and maybe some compressed soy products like they're watching someone get beheaded. It's fruit and vegetables you (hopefully) eat it with every meal anyways. I think what's disgusting is the agricultural industrial sprawl that is killing this planet's biosphere and in comparison no I don't really give any fucks about your dining table lol.

[Invader Zim]

But how does that mean that a house, or a statue, has "rights"?

No, it means that people and institutions have been granted property rights.

This would be an excessively juspositivist notion of "rights".

How so? It is again a point of fact. If women have an abortion after the cut off point they run the risk of prosecution, because society has assigned fetuses rights at that point. This is indisputable. If the law were to change, then the rights of those fetuses would also change along with them. This is again indisputable. Modern societies have developed the notion of rights have development because of the expansion of human societies and the development of collective force (i.e. law enforcement officialdom), and collective force is tempered and directed by law (or at least it is supposed to be).

And I think that any other perspective is tenable. If you deny that rights are not the product of human social development subject to constant evolution, then it infers that rights are granted by an 'outside force' (i.e. a deity) or that rights are biological in basis, that we intrinsically have them because of the way in which we are built. Both of these views are ludicrous, ascientific, and easily debunked. Firstly, all concepts and conceptions of rights would be identical where-ever you go. Secondly, they would not be subject to change as time progresses, and clearly they are.

[MP5]

No, it isn't. Gun control was enacted to keep citizens safe from gun crimes, not to prevent violent revolution. Even the most heavily armed militants would stand no chance against, say, the US or British militaries.

I'd fear the far right more than the left with guns, though. They are the ones who seem to fetishize violence.

Yes because the government always has our best interests in mind . Some Anarchist you are right enough

Well The Provisional IRA and the Irish National Liberation Army where 2 heavily armed Socialist paramilitaries who did stand their own against the British security forces in Northern Ireland which where the British army and the Royal Ulster Constabulary as well as against the Loyalist paramilitaries the British army directly aided such as the Ulster Defense Association, Ulster volunteer force, Loyalist volunteer force, etc or any of the other names for various groups of dirtbags that killed anyone that was even suspected of being Irish. Unlike the republicans they directly targeted civilians but then again so did the RUC and the British army.

In America discriminatory gun laws where put in place against possible threats to the established order. One example which a poster above me pointed out was the Mulford Act of 1967 which prohibited the carrying of loaded firearms in California. This bill actually had the unabashed support of the NRA which just shows how racist and pro-government they where/are. The bill put through by Regan was a reaction to the fact that the Black Panthers had started carrying around loaded pump action shotguns to protect black Communities against attacks by white supremacists and police officers.

They never had more then a few skirmishes with the police or more then about 10,000 members at it's height but this just shows how much a relatively small and very lightly armed Socialist group who are willing to use violence to protect themselves can put the shits up in the police even in the big old bad USA.

[Invader Zim]

Yes because the government always has our best interests in mind . Some Anarchist you are right enough

Well The Provisional IRA and the Irish National Liberation Army where 2 heavily armed Socialist paramilitaries who did stand their own against the British security forces in Northern Ireland which where the British army and the Royal Ulster Constabulary as well as against the Loyalist paramilitaries the British army directly aided such as the Ulster Defense Association, Ulster volunteer force, Loyalist volunteer force, etc or any of the other names for various groups of dirtbags that killed anyone that was even suspected of being Irish. Unlike the republicans they directly targeted civilians but then again so did the RUC and the British army.

Is the North free of British rule? What is the casualty (captured, wounded, killed) rate between British army henchmen and IRA volunteers? Have the political aims of the IRA been achieved?

Or, basically, has the IRA been pissing in the wind since 1969?

And what has the IRA's myriad of failures got to do with the private ownership of firearms?

[X5N]

I oppose banning guns. I don't like the way liberals talk about how "only the police and military have guns!"

[Synthesis-]

I support workers having weapons and denying the bourgeois all forms of their weapons.

[Domela Nieuwenhuis]

I oppose banning guns. I don't like the way liberals talk about how "only the police and military have guns!"

A ban is a ban. Not some "you can't have none, we can"-bullshit thing.

[Rottenfruit]

I'm just curious what the general consensus here is on guns. I know a guy. He's a bit of a gun nut and he thinks that communists want to take away his guns. Last I checked most communists were in favour of gun rights.

Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun
Mao

Also why do you trust the police for having guns rather then you? We all know how police never abuse there power. why does gun control not apply to the goverment then?

[Art Vandelay]

Political power grows out of the [I]barrel of a gun
Mao

Which shows just how anti-Marxist Mao was; political power grows not from the 'barrel of a gun,' but from the proletariat's collective relationship to the means of production.

[Domela Nieuwenhuis]

This!!!

That news (and other incidents like it) should be enough to ban guns forever!

[Rottenfruit]

This!!!

That news (and other incidents like it) should be enough to ban guns forever!

Did this site just got invaded by liberals or something? How did the russian revulution of 1917 happend? Oh thats right guns, how did the vietcong beat Usa and the french , well i can give you a hint it was not peace signs and flowers

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

By the way, has anyone here considered the matter of enforcement?

In a capitalist society, it would be the police and other enforcement organs of the bourgeois state that would be responsible for making sure those "dumb, irresponsible proles" don't get firearms.

But in a communist society?

Oh okay, so animals being tortured as test subjects for capitalist products, vivisection, throwing helpless animals onto the ground beating them with clubs to break their bones and proceeding to skin them alive for their fur to profit the fur industry, yeah such terror isn't oppression is it? Electrocuting cows/pigs with prods over their body, stomping, kicking, punching, defenseless animals sure isn't oppression.

Hurting and destroying animals for no socially beneficial purpose can be cruel, callous, and quite possibly indicative of a dangerous personality, but it is not oppressive. Non-human animals can most certainly feel pain but none have the ability to place themselves in a wider social context with regards to their relationship with humans.

Animals don't want to be confined to test labs, or confined to small cramped inclosures and beat and tormented since they're "lesser" beings to humans, you think that's justifiable simply because they cannot talk? or tell us "stop" or because the local neighbor's dog down the street can't do an algebraic equation or contribute to metaphysics.

I agree that putting animals through hell just for shits and giggles is not something we should be encouraging, But other than that?

The issue is for however many years of your life you're taught it's alright to treat animals as lesser because they're not as "intelligent" as us, or that they're simply there for our entertainment in zoos, or circuses, and they're main reason here is to be slaughtered by humans. Might be easy to goto your local store get a pound of ground beef without thinking of what kind of torment the animal went to cause god knows humans sure love their hamburgers and steaks! Just like it's easy for people to pickup nikes or other useless material possessions without a thought of the workers who worked them, what kind of conditions they were coerced into, whether child labor, or sick or old working 12 hour days for 15 cents a day just to give us this wonderful product!

As far as I'm concerned the fact that the sweatshop worker likely has dreams and aspirations of their own, rather than just a desire to avoid pain in favour of comfort, makes them more important to my consideration than a cow that's already been long minced. I'd like the cow not to have suffered any more than was absolutely necessary to produce the mince, but I don't see what difference abstaining would do.

It is not a gross over-simplification, these things are connected they're various forms of oppression that are different layers of part of the same society us as humans have been living in. It's elitism, it's hierarchical structures and it's dominance. Whether it's the rich dominance over the poor or the few elite over the many, male dominance at home with patriarchy, or white privileged dominance over non-whites, hetero dominance over gay and transgender, it's all ingrained in a capitalist society, it's all a system of coercion. No one is above another, not the local pig because he has a badge and a gun, not the local landlord, not a human being above an animal.

It's not the same. Rich-poor divides are between humans. Patriarchy is something humans do to each other. Heterosexism is found in human societies and nowhere else. There's no connection between those things and the use of non-human animals for various purposes, a phenomenon which pre-dates class society.

There shouldn't be dominant based relationships between each other nor animals. The hierarchical structures in society says it's okay, but take a look outside your bubble and you might realize there is something incredibly fucked up with a society that thinks it's alright to torture animals and use them as test subjects because their life's are lesser than human lives somehow.

At some point new drugs and surgical techniques have to be tested on an actual living organism. We need to make sure that such things don't have too many unexpected consequences for patients, and going straight to human tests would defeat the purpose of that, as well as being unethical.

I'm sure if we had research facilities where humans were test subjects with tubes being surgically inserted into their face, or having chemicals dripped into their eyes, or chemicals forced into their stomach,injected, products rubbed into their skin, etc. there would be much outcry over such things. Yet humans think it's quite alright to test household cleaners/ingredients, cosmetics, drugs, so on and so on. Hell people like Descartes tried to justify the notion that animals don't feel pain and used vivisection on rabbits and dogs.

So what's your alternative? Not test things and then say "oops sorry!" when it turns out that an un-tested chemical or procedure produces a lethal interaction or allergic reaction?

It's not a matter of things being like us, it's a matter of them having the capacity for suffering; if there were hypothetically an alien creature totally unrelated to anything on earth, but it was sentient, I would say it was worthy of being treated like we'd treat any other intelligent being. The same should be for animals.

An alien could be sapient, which is the deciding factor. But most non-human animals, while sentient, are not sapient.

[Domela Nieuwenhuis]

Did this site just got invaded by liberals or something? How did the russian revulution of 1917 happend? Oh thats right guns, how did the vietcong beat Usa and the french , well i can give you a hint it was not peace signs and flowers

Yeah, because that shit ended well! Oh wait! It ended up in violent dictatures with people starving and all the money going to guns and cannons.

Yeah, great point.

[Rottenfruit]

Yeah, because that shit ended well! Oh wait! It ended up in violent dictatures with people starving and all the money going to guns and cannons.

Yeah, great point.

What what in earth are you doing on revleft if you disagree with the Russian revolution of 1917?

[Domela Nieuwenhuis]

What what in earth are you doing on revleft if you disagree with the Russian revolution of 1917?

Non Marxist Anarchist/pascifist. Still into revolution though.

Do you honestly think you can solve everything with violence?
As i mentioned before, innocent kids are getting hurt, or even worse! So yes, i hate guns.

Anyway, if you are in need of violence to defeat an uprising of workers unhappy with your vanguard, how fit is your vanguard to actually support the workers?
That's why there are so many accounts of famine and unrest from the USSR.

Revolution is one thing, keeping it stable is a whole other thing.

Pascifism and majority. Not violence man, pascifism and majority.