Family in HA

[PaulW]

By your standards I can come to your house, take all your stuff and shoot your dog. How do you like that?

[ironyak]

PaulW - By your standards I can come to your house, take all your stuff and shoot your dog. How do you like that?

You could - there are no laws of physics that prevent that. Seems like you'd be causing some harm, so it would be hard to argue you have any right to do so. There's also no moral tradition that would support your action as being just. Don't forget also the trouble you might run into from scofflaws like myself who aren't real keen on tolerating such an imposition on my rights.

So sure, give it a try and see if your laws protect you. No doubt we can settle our philosophical differences quite quickly and thoroughly.

[PaulW]

I get to choose which laws apply to me (according to your theory), so it's your problem if you don't like it. By your reasoning.
Yes, let's all buy big sexy guns and shoot each other. Or we can leave that to law enforcement.

[PaulW]

"Seems like you'd be causing some harm, so it would be hard to argue you have any right to do so."

You're getting there! Keep going.

[ironyak]

PaulW - I get to choose which laws apply to me (according to your theory), so it's your problem if you don't like it. By your reasoning.

Correct, you taking my stuff and shooting my dog is my problem - who else's would it be? And yes, we all get to choose which laws to obey, same as law enforcement gets to choose which laws to enforce. And when laws are unjust and harmful, some people choose not to obey, to exercise their own personal judgement and conscience as to what is right and wrong, regardless of the consequences. It's how the law bends towards justice; it's why the U.S. is a separate country from Britain, why slavery was ultimately ended, why children no longer work 13 hour shifts, why women got the right to vote, why public facilities were desegregated, why gay people can legally marry. All this, and much more, was won by those who fought for their rights regardless of the law.

No doubt you however would be a heavily-taxed, but content, British slave owner, sending your kids off to their shifts at the factory and telling the missus to stay out of politics and in the kitchen. Because of course, that was The Law.

"Must the citizen ever for a moment, or in the least degree, resign his conscience to the legislator? Why has every man a conscience, then? I think that we should be men first, and subjects afterward. It is not desirable to cultivate a respect for the law, so much as for the right. [...] Law never made men a whit more just; and, by means of their respect for it, even the well-disposed are daily made the agents of injustice." - Civil Disobedience, Henry David Thoreau

[PaulW]

Yes, people living in shacks and letting their waste flow into their neighbor's land, they are the moral equivalent of those who sought to free us from the Brits and get women the vote. No difference at all.

[ironyak]

PaulW - Yes, people living in shacks and letting their waste flow into their neighbor's land, they are the moral equivalent of those who sought to free us from the Brits and get women the vote.

Well at least they haven't been inventing injuries without evidence in order to vilify strangers without cause. As such, they seem to be far more moral than you have shown yourself to be here.

Where is your righteous indignation over the law breakers and lawlessness throughout American history? How dare they choose which laws apply to them!? You tout all these high-minded civic responsibilities and then shirk at the least challenge to them. Perhaps you are a Marxist?
"Those are my principles, and if you don't like them... well, I have others." - Groucho Marx

[terracore]

"Eleventh Commandment"

Thirteenth disciple: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Matthias

[ElysianWort]

I would like to invite all tweakers to move to HA where they can live in blessed harmony and communal ownership of goods with the other free spirits.

Man you crack me up PaulW. That is funny!

We go from not bothering a peaceful person with an unpermitted home to wishing a plague of ice-heads to our serene neighborhood? Man you are too much!


Ok my turn. I would like to redirect all said tweakers to PaulW's back yard, garage and living room. Get ready for an all-nighter Paul! [:0] [8]

edited to add the word "of" before ice-heads visiting Paul

[PaulW]

Sorry! You're the one who wants neighbors who think rules and laws don't apply to them, not me!
So you are the one who gets to live with the consequences in make-believe world. Enjoy.