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[ToonyMan]

At the same time you can criticize video game ratings for not caring for violence as much as they should?  It's a silly discussion.

Anyway I pleasantly await the day parents will stop telling their kids to attack people...or the dire situation where they must be in a relationship with someone (of the opposite gender for my family, seriously my step-Dad actually said he'd beat me up if I brought home a guy).

[GlyphGryph]

Another post: @Glyph - Nobody in this post has ever said you shouldn't defend yourself if you're attacked. The difference is that RedKing, MSH and the others thinks it's okay to attack before signs of aggression and threat is even known or shown. That's what the discussion have been about.

If you're getting robbed, you're getting attacked. The harm is material and not physical, sure - just like some attacks are psychological and not physical. But this was mostly in response to the comments about acquiescing to muggers, which I admit has strayed a bit from the burglary thing, and mugging is definitely attacking.

[Leafsnail]

We've stigmatized fighting in school such that upper-tier kids are mortified to get in a fight, while the bottom-feeders (yeah, I know, not exactly a progressive term but that's how I'd classify the ones that don't want to be there, make no attempt to learn and just disrupt things for everyone else) revel in it.

This is among the least progressive things I have ever read.  Stupid bottom-feeders, ruining it for your "upper-tier" kids.  Black hats.  White hats.

Again, since no one has responded, Blarg, Leafsnail:
Do you think it is okay to fight back if someone is trying to rape you? With lethal force?

I'll be honest, so far the entirety of at least Leafsnail's argument is that people should value others life over their own, or at least that people should completely re-order their value system. Essentially - that he knows what other people should see as important, and what they actually see as important matters jack shit to the equation. So fine - but I'm interested in seeing how far your dedication to this strict "my life is most important thing, attackers life is second most important thing" ideal holds.

Sorry, I thought you were against strawmen.  I guess you're instead against other people using strawmen?  What the fuck.

I have said nothing on situations where you are in danger of serious physical harm (danger of serious harm would be the one situation where I would regard lethal force as acceptable).  I have been attacking the notion that RedKing and to a lesser extent Fenrir have put forward that it's acceptable to shoot a fleeing trespasser (note: fleeing trespassers are not raping you) and before that saying that trespassers being killed is a regrettable thing.  If someone is running away then shooting them does nothing to defend you.  If anything it puts you in more danger since if you miss they now have no option but to attack you in order to make you stop shooting them.

I dunno...maybe this is why America is the way it is. We learn early on that you have to fight to be left alone.

I liked your white hats/ black hats idea more.  It seems to encompass a lot of the problems very nicely.

[scriver]

After a quick look back through the thread I could find nothing from you saying such, RedKing, but here is MSH and ChairmanPoo saying it's morally right to attack and/or kill an intruder before you know if they're a threat or not:

Spoiler: Discussion as it went put together into one quote pyramid (click to show/hide)

They have entered your residence and are trying to deprive you of property. They may or may not harm or kill you themselves if given the chance. If someone is in your house unlawfully, they may not be a thief in the first place. They may very well be out to harm or kill you as a primary objective. You have no way of knowing any of this, aside from the fact that they've broken into your home.

Responding with lethal force in this situation is completely justified.

If they attack you, you can defend yourself. If they don't, you can't attack them. If you do not know they are out to arm you then of course you do not have a reason to harm them to begin with. If you do, that's not self defence, because you are the aggressor and the instigator. Somebody just being in your home unallowed is not enough to shoot anyone, let alone murder them, which I hope you realise is what "lethal force" implies. You can't justify the murder of another man with "oh he could've have possibly been meaning to harm me, really!" That's a completely horrible way of thinking, and the exact kind of stupidity that led to the "Stand Your Ground" kind of laws.

The intruder is instigating. They instigated when they intruded, hence the name. Lethal force does not imply murder. Lethal force implies killing. Murder is a legally defined crime, killing is an act which is sometimes in line with that crime and other times is not.

No, the intruder has broken into your home. If you start a fight with him, you are the instigator and attacker, and he has a right to defend himself from you. Being a robber does not deprive him of any rights, it makes him guilty of a crime. Nothing more.

He instigated a situation in which you're potentially in danger, and justified to respond with force. You can be sure I wont sit calmly while the intruder goes about his things, and hope he's just about getting some small cash for pizza, or something, instead of beating me up or killing me, and raping my family. What you are arguing for is simply ridiculous, that we should wait until this obviously hostile stranger has begun overt violence against us to defend ourselves against him.

This is not to say that any violent action is fair game (executing them while they are down is out of the question, let alone torturing them), but I think allowing the homeowner first strike without warning is common sense. It'd be regarded as self defense in most western nations, too.

Always, always, always, ALWAYS for your own safety as well as theirs, get them out without a fight. If this means cowering in a corner, so be it. Even if we screw moral concerns, you have no goddamn good reason to attack the robber unless they are actively threatening you or someone else, simply because your stuff isn't worth the risk. If you DO have means to intimidate them out, use them of course, but be prepared to run and not actually fight. Period.

PRECISEDLY because I care about my own safety, I'd empty my gun in their general direction as soon as I saw them. In case they decide to get violent, which, again, is not unusual. It's even reasonable, from their point of view: hey, let's beat up a bit the guy covering in the corner. Who knows, maybe he has a safe somewhere, or we can get his credit card's account number out of him. Again this is not a hypothetical scenario. It does happen. Acting like a fucking sheep going to the slaughter doesn't dissuade them out of treating you like one.

And here's me and kaijyuu neatly lining up our positions and the premise (I guess this also pretty much answers your question, Glyph):

1. Simply trespassing is not enough to justify violent "self defence". In fact, if you attack someone just for being in your house or on your land, you are the aggressor and the trespasser have a right to defend themselves against you. They have to threaten or attack you first.

2. Self defence does not give you the right to do whatever you want to your attacker. Reasonable force and all that.

Yeah, this.



Self defense requires some sort of aggression against you, not your property. And your property isn't worth the thief's life. Not by a long shot. Sorry.

When you stated "if somebody puts a knife on my family's neck I will attack" scenario you were basically making up that we were opposed to it in any way, since our points was basically that you can't resort to violence unless you are attacked or threatened first, and your scenario pretty obviously falls under "attacked or threatened first".

And once again, while you might say breaking and entering "constitutes a threat", yeah, it still isn't enough to attack or kill the intruder, the same way somebody pushing you in a bar is aggressive and threatening but doesn't give you right to send them to the hospital or the morgue. It isn't right to attack and assault an intruder before you know he won't run away when confronted. At the very, very most it could be okay to wrestle and try to detain the intruder causing as little harm to him as humanly possible. Getting a baseball bat, knife, or a gun to use on him does not apply.

[RedKing]

We've stigmatized fighting in school such that upper-tier kids are mortified to get in a fight, while the bottom-feeders (yeah, I know, not exactly a progressive term but that's how I'd classify the ones that don't want to be there, make no attempt to learn and just disrupt things for everyone else) revel in it.

This is among the least progressive things I have ever read.  Stupid bottom-feeders, ruining it for your "upper-tier" kids.  Black hats.  White hats.

And I acknowledged as much when I wrote it. Doesn't change the fact that that's how I see it, both in my experience as a student and as an adult. The nice thing about college is that people who don't want to be there don't have to be, and professors can essentially say "shut up or gtfo" to disruptive students.

And once again, while you might say breaking and entering "constitutes a threat", yeah, it still isn't enough to attack or kill the intruder, the same way somebody pushing you in a bar is aggressive and threatening but doesn't give you right to send them to the hospital or the morgue. It isn't right to attack and assault an intruder before you know he won't run away when confronted. At the very, very most it could be okay to wrestle and try to detain the intruder causing as little harm to him as humanly possible. Getting a baseball bat, knife, or a gun to use on him does not apply.

I don't see an equivalence to the bar scenario. A bar is public space. Both people have an equal right to be there. A home is not public space. The homeowner has a legal and moral right to be there. A burglar has neither.

[ChairmanPoo]

. It isn't right to attack and assault an intruder before you know he won't run away when confronted. At the very, very most it could be okay to wrestle and try to detain the intruder causing as little harm to him as humanly possible. Getting a baseball bat, knife, or a gun to use on him does not apply.

It does apply. As RK said, my home is not a public space. I can't assume that the intruder is not violent. I can't assume that the intruder is not armed. I' have no military or police training. As such I don't have any honed reflexes to shoot faster than the other guy if he turns and does have a gun, let alone the skill and physical ability to wrestle him to the ground "with as little harm as possible". In the situation described above, pretty much the only advantage I would have is surprise. And sad to say, and as much as I disagree with the "stereotypical US opinions" in many matters, I have to say that I do agree with the stance on home defense. (I don't think you should be able to hunt down fleeing intruders, or kill someone who is down, but I'm not about to warn a potentially armed intruder of my presence, because he might flee, but he might turn around and shoot me)

[scriver]

No. It simply isn't morally justifiable to attack someone before you know they pose a threat to you - as said before, this makes you a threat to them and gives them the right to defend themselves from you. Even if it happens in your home. Nobody said that the doing the morally right thing is easy, it never is, but it's still the right thing. This is q scenario where putting yourself in possible danger (by waiting for him to attack) is the right thing, because otherwise you will be attacking a person without reason. It won't be self defence, because there is nothing to defend against yet except your own ghosts.

[Bauglir]

And the difference is that to some people "Dude broke into my house and is rifling through my stuff" suggests that he's a reasonable threat.

[RedKing]

This is q scenario where putting yourself in possible danger (by waiting for him to attack) is the right thing, because otherwise you will be attacking a person without reason.

And that's where we're just never going to agree. The reason is "intruder is in my house, illegally". That, in and of itself, constitutes sufficient justification as far as I'm concerned, and in many parts of the United States it's sufficient legal justification as well.

And lest you think that violent home invasions are a rare instance, I checked the local news and we've had at least three in my county just since the start of this year. And this is generally considered a very safe area to live in. If I extended my search to places like Durham and Fayetteville we'd easily be in double-digit occurrences for the year.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

As one might suspect, I agree with pretty much everything that RedKing has said over the past few pages.

Also, if you added Fayetteville you'd probably get into the triple-digits. That place has got to be one of the most dangerous in NC.

[RedKing]

As one might suspect, I agree with pretty much everything that RedKing has said over the past few pages.

Also, if you added Fayetteville you'd probably get into the triple-digits. That place has got to be one of the most dangerous in NC.

Per capita, Robeson County is the most crime-ridden (down around Lumberton). Of the main cities though, IIRC Charlotte is actually worse than Fayette-nam. We just hear more about Fayetteville due to proximity.

[Blargityblarg]

I think, again, that we're discussing two different issues here; dealing with an American (generalising here, please forgive me) burglar, and dealing with a European (again, generalising) burglar. In one case, you can be relatively safe in assuming that your mere presence is enough to scare one off, and in the other, you have to pull out the artillery and, instead, shuffle them off.

[Sheb]

You know what, when I look at America, it's so fucked up (not really the guns, but political corruption, climate change denial, religious extremism...) that if it were a fortress, I'd just flood it with magma and start over.

[scriver]

So, moving on. It's a bit too much of a hassle to dig up an article from my phone, but they said on the news last night that Argentina have gone through with legal stuff that makes it possible for any person to choose which gender they want to to under legal-wise, without questions or therapy or anything like that. It's seems like a pretty cool thing from the reportage (but it was also kind of short I guess so I don't know if there are any other catches that wasn't mentioned). Also always neat when "backwards" countries one-up the Western European states like this.

[Sheb]

I wonder why they still bother with keeping track of gender actually. How is it relevant?