Is it a good idea to join the military.... In need of advice

[The Heretic]

I would be the last person to say anything about your rights and never did. I don't think I know you. What I stated is that cost of our freedom is to be forever vigilant and there are costs for our freedoms.

Freedom yes, rights no.

Rights are "natural" - inherent, innate, intrinsic - i.e., natural - part of your nature.

There is a difference between freedom and rights and it is important to understand that difference.

People talk about "taking away your rights", but they are not really understanding what they are saying, or they want you to think along the line that rights can be taken away - i.e., that they are granted by others when in actuality they are part of your nature and cannot be taken away.

From there, it is a small step to asserting that your natural rights are not natural at all, and are only granted to you by others, i.e., the government (i.e., the populace) and can therefore be voted away.

That is why it is so important to understand and use the correct meaning of words and concepts. People twist words or mistakenly use them, and then by repeatedly using them in that way, they change people's minds regarding the concepts.

 

[JRuby]

Freedom yes, rights no.

Rights are "natural" - inherent, innate, intrinsic - i.e., natural - part of your nature.

There is a difference between freedom and rights.

I disagree a right without freedom to exercise that right is not a right. If a state takes away the ability to self defense you no longer have the right to self defense. You can't have a right without the freedom to exercise that right. The state has removed your right that is why the Constitution is so impottant.

 

[The Heretic]

I disagree a right without freedom to exercise that right is not a right. If a state takes away the ability to self defense you no longer have the right to self defense. You can't have a right without the freedom to exercise that right.

So rights appear and disappear at the whim of the government, the populace?

Do you see the trap into which you have fallen? The trap which is by the making of those who want to take away your freedom? Who would have you believe that they can remove your natural rights by passing a law?

This is how they take freedom away from us.

Yes - we have to be diligent and resist - and understanding the basis of our natural rights - where they come from, ourselves, not others, is where you start. Build upon rock, not shifting sand.

 

[JRuby]

So rights appear and disappear at the whim of the government, the populace?

Do you see the trap into which you have fallen? The trap which is by the making of those who want to take away your freedom? Who would have you believe that they can remove your natural rights by passing a law?

The Constitution spells out are rights as citizens. Tell me if you have been enslaved what rights do you have?

 

[The Heretic]

The Constitution spells out are rights as citizens. Tell me if you have been enslaved what rights do you have?

The US Constitution does not grant you rights, it enumerates certain natural rights and leaves others undefined but still existing.

Read it. Understand the history of it and Natural Rights and how the founders viewed rights.

Article [IX] (Amendment 9 - Unenumerated Rights)
The Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

Article [X] (Amendment 10 - Reserved Powers)
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

 

[The Heretic]

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights,"

 

[nwslopoke]

@The Heretic

Seems to work for Israel.

Note that I wrote of choices. Admittedly not everyone is cut out for military service.

BTW, as a fellow Coastie I think you need an attitude adjustment. Nobody here is trying to tell you to do anything!!!

And another thing, I never served with anybody like that. You musta been a black shoe.

I served with a spoiled kid whose family was pretty well off. Can't say that was why, but he really didn't fit in. This was in Germany but his parents were always trying to outdo each other with the gifts they sent including a car.

He was a smart kid but was worthless. He didn't understand the idea of a collective or that he volunteered to be there. He wasn't the only one but he had the most abilities.

 

[The Heretic]

Part of the problem I noticed (and mentioned earlier) was that most of the enlisted were very young and had no to little life experience.

I made a practice of asking them why they enlisted, and most said they enlisted on a whim, with no real reason for it. They did it on a dare, or because they didn't know what else to do, or some other lame excuse.

Some were as young as 17, few were over 19 or 20, very few were as old as I was during their first enlistment.

I would dare say that if the lower age limit were 21, much fewer people would enlist.

 

[JRuby]

I will concede to the point of the enumeration of the Constitution of specific rights but I would say that even those rights have been limited / regulated by our government I also do not feel a right cannot exist without the freedom to exercise that right and the more the right is regulated the less of that freedom we legally have. A right that I cannot exercise to me does not exist. A right must be exercisable by all men or it cannot exist. And the only way I can protect my rights it fight and stand up for them I call them my dues.

I will capitulate this discussion to you Heretic My wife has me going to a estate sale so with my inability to further discuss this you win.

 

[Certaindeaf]

If it was back in the day of cannon fodder, the draft would make sense. But it's not.

 

[The Heretic]

Regulate, limit?

Sure - that equates to restricting your freedom to exercise your right - which is what I have been saying.

A right must be exercisable by all men or it cannot exist.

Then NO rights at all exist, because there are literally billions of people who cannot exercise their natural rights.

The logical conclusion to that premise is that rights come from governments, and are therefore not "natural" or inherent to the person.

Therefore, governments can create and destroy rights as they see fit, with the stroke of a pen.

This I do not agree with, and why I argue so vehemently against that premise - because if it were so, then we are all doomed. This is also why so many in power, and their blind followers, ascribe to that premise - and no, it is not just those who want to take away our right to arms, but also those, right and left, liberal and conservative, who want to take away any right.

 

[The Heretic]

I will capitulate this discussion to you Heretic My wife has me going to a estate sale so with my inability to further discuss this you win.

Some months ago I read an article about a study where the premise was that when humans debate issues, we do not attempt to learn or educate or share ideas, we are simply trying to win the debate, which in turn hinders any advancement/enlightenment.

I will admit that I am not immune to that trait.

However, at the risk of sounding pedantic, that is not my goal with this little side road to this thread - my goal is to help people understand the nature of our natural rights and to a degree, how words are important, especially with respect to how they are used in such discussions.

 

[Skier]

I'm going to have to agree with The Heretic here, from a semantics point of view. The words "rights" and "freedom" are two different concepts. In this context:

Rights: Something that everyone has by nature. Unchangeable, regardless of circumstances

Freedom: Whether or not you're able to exercise all those rights without interference.

We here of "human rights violations" and just that term itself is evidence that there is an acknowledgement that the person(s) HAS rights, yet they're being violated.

The Constitution doesn't spell our our rights as citizens, it put on paper an acknowledgement of the rights we have as human beings, and tries to spell our that our government should not do anything to infringe upon our freedom to exercise those rights.

Here's my translation of the preamble to the Declaration of Independence:

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal,"

It's obvious to us, everyone is created equal [with no has more or less rights than others, and it might be noted that they were created this way; it didn't just happen by accident].

"that they are endowed by their Creator"

These rights came from their creator, not their own works, or their parents, or the government, or anything else, and thus can't be taken away by anyone else, as NO ONE else is in charge of those rights.

"with certain unalienable Rights,"

unalienable: from latin alienus meaning "of or belonging to another," with the prefix "un", you get "not of or belonging to another." Per Websters dictionary "impossible to take away or give up."

So, at this point, we have certain rights that were granted not by government, but by an even higher power, and those rights are impossible to take away or give up.

"that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."

... and here's just a couple examples, with some pretty broad implications, but ones worth specifically mentioning because of their broad implications.

" — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men,"

The purpose of government (or at least the one they're setting out to establish) is to acknowledge and secure those rights, so it won't be infringed upon by people who for whatever reason don't want to recognize those rights.

"deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,"

and because we're all equal, the only power government has is because we agree to it, for the purpose of protecting those rights from violation.

" — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. "

And finally, if the government fails to do the above, we have the right (as people created equal, even to those in government who might think otherwise) to get rid of the government when it no longer is functioning in the capacity that it is protecting the rights that we have and which can't be taken away.

See this is not granting us any rights. It's reminding the government that they exist, and that if the government forgets that, and we no longer consent to being governed, then we have the right to tell them "sorry, you're not treating us as equals and you're not serving your purpose anymore, so you don't get to govern us anymore." Though there's a lot of messed up stuff in government these days (and probably always), government is supposed to be a good thing. In fact, in many ways it is, if you compare it to what some other governments inflict upon and/or allow to happen to their people.

On another note, given that you have a rights (among others) to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, you can choose to exercise those rights or not... You don't have to happy, you can choose to mope around. You don't have to give yourself liberty, making taking a break on Saturday; you could choose to work seven days a week. You could even take your own life. You don't have to exercise any of your rights. But if you CAN, then you have freedom to do so, and if someone else is preventing you from exercising those rights, you still have those rights (they're guaranteed and can't be rightly taken away), but if your freedom to exercise them is being taken away, and that is a rights-violation, and our government is supposed to help prevent/correct that.

As a final example, I believe we have right right to be secure in our property and not have people steal stuff from us. If someone steals something from me, I don't believe I've lost the rights to not have someone steal from me, rather my right have been violated, and the government should do something to prevent that (hence laws against stealing, police to enforce those laws, jails to prevent the person to doing it again, etc). Is there any time that I don't have the right to be secure in my possessions and not have someone steal from me? In general, no, but in the case where you have violated someone else's rights, then you can sometimes lose the freedom to exercise those rights, and that's called justice, which is another important idea and which is mentioned very early in the preamble of the Constitution. Without the concept of justice, it's difficult to secure people's freedom to exercise their rights.

I hope maybe that makes a little more sense. (Assuming you read this far; sorry for the long post, but I'm hoping I gave enough detail to clarify the difference between rights and freedom).

P.S. With regards to the 2A, if the government already acknowledged that we (even before the government existed) had a natural right to life, and thus a natural right to keep and bear arms, which enables us to protect and secure the right to life, then government can't take that right away (that would be a right violation)... They're supposed to protect it. If, on the other hand, the constitution "gave us that right" (as opposed to just acknowledging that it exists), then the same government that "gave" that right to us can just as easily take that right away, and there would be nothing wrong with that (i.e. NO rights violation, and no reason to complain).

 

[bbbass]

I served with a spoiled kid whose family was pretty well off. Can't say that was why, but he really didn't fit in. This was in Germany but his parents were always trying to outdo each other with the gifts they sent including a car.

He was a smart kid but was worthless. He didn't understand the idea of a collective or that he volunteered to be there. He wasn't the only one but he had the most abilities.

Telling a story or making a point? I want to be sure I understand where you are coming from.