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Comment by rhcom2 | Hacker News Reader

Does this kind of just go with the fantasy that there will be some major revolution and hams will be the only way to communicate? Same with some gun owners fantasy that one day they'll need their small arms to overthrow the state?

It just all seems so unrealistic to me. This video shows Cuba, a country with practically no military budget compared to the US, jamming hams without problem - but the fantasy goes that somehow it would be the last bastion of free communication in the event of a American revolution?

The same with gun control, that the fact you can only get a 12 round magazine instead of the 30 round magazine is going to make a difference in "the revolution"?

Not even getting to the point that if by focusing on preparing for a destructive revolution you begin to give up on fixing things through the political process.

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So what's your stance? We shouldn't allow individuals to operate ham radios or provide to their own self defense because it doesn't matter anyway?

Every organism has the right for self defense and communication, whether you or a government agrees with it.

Rights are an arbitrary human construct.

So the right to life is a human construct? That means that it is totally okay for the police to shoot everyone they don't like.

Rights are not a human construct; they are inalienable, given by a Creator, and we will be accountable to Him for stepping on the rights of others, and He expects us to do what we can to preserve the rights of others as well.

> So the right to life is a human construct? That means that it is totally okay for the police to shoot everyone they don't like.

No, it doesn't. Language is a human construct,¹ and yet there's yaught bleep mÜOL87 øō°0o. So something being a human construct doesn't mean you can safely ignore it.

¹: Esperanto, at least, is a human construct.

Language is a human construct, yes, that cannot be ignored.

But even if there are human constructs that cannot be ignored, my example with police still stands because since the police are the power, they can "construct" rights or deconstruct them still, which means they can ignore rights if they are just a human construct, a construct that they themselves supposedly helped build.

In fact, your argument is really in favor of the ideology that the strongest deserve to rule the weak. That is not the case.

> In fact, your argument is really in favor of the ideology that the strongest deserve to rule the weak.

That's kind of irrelevant. Ideologies are great, manipulative things, seizing every argument and foothold they can to support themselves. Saying “nobody actually exists” counters “the strongest deserve to rule the weak” quite nicely, but it isn't true; arguing “people really exist” is an argument in favour of that ideology, but that doesn't make it false.

The idea of God-given rights has, historically, been the major justification behind “the strongest deserve to rule the weak”: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divine_right_of_kings Does that make you less inclined to believe it? (The answer should be no.)

Ignore manipulative, harmful ideologies until you can shun or counter them. If the Evil Ideology monopolises certain truths, and is the only set of philosophy (that purports to be) grounded in those truths, it seems to all but philosophers like the Evil Ideology is a consequence of those truths.

You said that the idea of God-given rights was used as the major justification for "the strongest deserve to rule the weak", but that is a non-sequitur; you know that what I mean here is the God-given rights to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness," which decidedly goes against the divine right of kings theory.

You said that humanism implies authoritarianism. That's the same kind of non-sequitur.

You are putting words in my mouth.

In fact, if humanism is about human agency, then I am saying that police officers who give themselves the right to shoot people are violating humanism because they violate the agency of others.

That said, rejecting God, rather His principles, will lead to authoritarianism because as man turns away from the principles of correct living, he becomes more of an animal and must be governed. Thus, authoritarianism arises.

But, aren't human police bound by/to human constructs?

I've always wondered why the "Him", "He", turns "Cap H Christians" do it out of respect, not grammar. I've been reading about Haile Selassie, often referred to as "HIM" or His Imperial Majesty.

Sure, police are bound but human constructs, but they can also change them in a whim since they have power.

And yes, I do it out of respect and would never capitalize those pronouns for a mere human, king or not.

> That means that it is totally okay for the police to shoot everyone they don't like.

there's what people can do, and the consequences of it. rights are just a statement about consequences, but just a statement, which is why cops don't have the right to kill without consequences, but in practice they kill without consequences.

If rights are a human construct, then cops, who are at the top of the power pyramid, can just give themselves the "right" to shoot whoever they want.

Yet the fact that we still say it's wrong shows that no, rights are not a human construct.

sure, but it doesn't matter what we say does it?

"...they are inalienable..."

I'm not sure that word means what you think it means.

I'm not sure you know the Declaration of Independence. And I do know what it means.

"The words 'people of the United States' and 'citizens' are synonymous terms, and mean the same thing. They both describe the political body who, according to our republican institutions, form the sovereignty, and who hold the power and conduct the Government through their representatives. They are what we familiarly call the 'sovereign people,' and every citizen is one of this people, and a constituent member of this sovereignty. The question before us is, whether the class of persons described in the plea in abatement compose a portion of this people, and are constituent members of this sovereignty? We think they are not, and that they are not included, and were not intended to be included, under the word 'citizens' in the Constitution, and can therefore claim none of the rights and privileges which that instrument provides for and secures to citizens of the United States. On the contrary, they were at that time considered as a subordinate and inferior class of beings, who had been subjugated by the dominant race, and, whether emancipated or not, yet remained subject to their authority, and had no rights or privileges but such as those who held the power and the Government might choose to grant them."

So is authority.

> Rights are an arbitrary human construct.

Okay, do you have a point?

Are you saying we should just throw rights out the window?

I never said don't allow those things but don't try to justify them with "Red Dawn" type fantasies about "revolution". It's just make believe.

> some gun owners fantasy that one day they'll need their small arms to overthrow the state?

Astan seems to have done well in proving an illegitimate state can’t be imposed on an independent polity with ample small arms.

The ability for the people to make a revolution prevents a revolution. The limits to authoritarianism of what both the govt is willing to do and what the people allow it to do is dependent on the prevalence of firearms that would be useful in that fantasy revolution. The firearms actually prevent the need for the firearms.

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