On 2005-01-02 10:03:00, Anonymous wrote:
"Nihilanthic wrote:
...If anyone kidnaps me I totally plan on showing as much respect as is necessary until I can put a knife in their throat.
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Up until this time I thought he was just an angry young man. Now it's apparent there's something much scarier going on here.
"
I don't find it so. And most of the country doesn't, or violence in self-defense wouldn't be legal. As, of course, it is.
For anyone who believes in fundamental human rights, it's not scary at all. It's laudable.
For kidnappers and thugs, I imagine it *is* rather scary to concieve of the possibility that when you use violent force on someone, they might just use violent force *back* on you.
You sound like a toddler who runs to mommy and tattles, "Mommy! He hit me *back*!!!!"
Wah.
Grow the hell up.
What goes around, comes around. When you violently attack someone, your violence begets the violence you recieve in return.
Humanity is the most successful large omnivorous predator on the planet. Don't be so surprised when you attack one and it *doesn't* react like a sheep.
The *truth* is that the major difference between an adolescent and an adult is that when you suddenly violently attack an *adult* who doesn't want to go with you, to incarcerate him or her, it is *much* more likely that that adult will use whatever force is necessary to stop you, up to and including killing you, up to and including killing *multiple* assailants, rather than meekly going along with you.
The major difference between an adult and an adolescent is that it's considerably *safer* to attack an adolescent.
Woe betide anyone who tried to kidnap or attack me or mine---if you're any student of history, all I should need to say is that my ancestors fought at Kings Mountain, TN and that my friends and family tend to be just as deadly.
Nihlanthic--you're exactly right. Resisting a violent kidnapping with deadly force, even if it has to include some component of biding your time to be effective, is perfectly appropriate.
Don't like it, monsters? Then don't take blood money to violently attack people who've never done you a bit of harm.
If you're a minor, you well might be prosecuted and jailed---but that's a flaw in the laws, not a flaw in you.
The right to self-defense is one of the natural rights of man, as is the right of personal liberty.
Yes, people can legitimately be deprived of their liberty if they're active dangers (to innocent people who aren't actually violently attacking them) or if they've committed crimes---but only with due process of law.
That teens are routinely violently kidnapped and incarcerated *without* due process of law is as much an evil flaw of our government as slavery, or when wives were chattel, or any other of the historically nightmare violations of fundamental human rights.
Sometimes the law is wrong.
Which, of course, is why I'm trying to change the law. I'd rather it be upfront and on the table for people who would do kidnappings for money that not only do they risk their own lives and freedom, but that if their intended victims may well use deadly force to stop the kidnappers' crime.
And, of course, I *don't* think someone who resists a kidnapping with force proportional to that used by the kidnappers should be prosecuted.
Kidnapping an individual over the age of reason, without due process of law, is malum in se. It doesn't *matter* if it's legal. It's still malum in se.
If they legalized rape, it would still be *moral* for a woman being attacked by a man attempting to rape her to fight back, even if she had to kill him to stop his attack. Because rape is malum in se---wrong in and of itself.
You can legalize something that's malum in se, but making it legal doesn't make it right. Just as making self-defense illegal doesn't make it immoral for someone who's being attacked to defend himself.
Good on you, Nihlanthic.
Timoclea
