why cant killing in self defense be premeditated? i can plan to do it should anyone attack me. i can prepare. i can arrange for an assasin to slay my enemy whilst i am attacked.
if i am not behaving from instinct then my thoughts determine my physical momevents, this means some meditation has gone wherein i calculated what action to take. so perhaps self-defense is premeditated?
why cant killing in self-defense be secret?. my attacker may attack me when i am anonymous, wearing a mask, and so when i fight back, he doesnt know who he fights. further if i self-defend by engaging a proxy, my proxy could be secretive . (a proxy could be an assasin for example)
Where there is no property there is no justice; a proposition as certain as any demonstration in Euclid
Fools! not to see that what they madly desire would be a calamity to them as no hands but their own could bring
nirgrahamUK:why cant killing in self defense be premeditated? i can plan to do it should anyone attack me. i can prepare. i can arrange for an assasin to slay my enemy whilst i am attacked.
How exactly are you doing this unless you know the exact time and place of an attack in advance? "Well, I'll hire my assassin to watch me/my house/my property constantly!" Well, then he isn't an assassin; he is an armed guard.
nirgrahamUK:if i am not behaving from instinct then my thoughts determine my physical momevents, this means some meditation has gone wherein i calculated what action to take. so perhaps self-defense is premeditated?
No pal. "Premeditated" means you've completely planned out what you will do and do it. If somebody breaks into my house and I shoot him, that is not "premeditated" because I didn't make up that morning and decide to kill somebody. At best, I've had 20 seconds' notice.
An assassin is somebody who hunts down and murders a specific victim for hire. That is far different from shooting in self-defense.
"As long as there are sovereign nations possessing great power, war is inevitable."
send out a bat signal to the killer bat dude?
premeditated can be seconds, pre doesnt mean 'several hours passed'
some people are involved in acts of aggression around the clock so bumping them off is in defense of said criminals victims.
but lets not fight and bicker about who killed who
No. You are wrong.
Natural law does not mean "survival of the fittest" or "survival of the most powerful." Natural law dictates that every human being, with a few exceptions including the brain-dead, has the right of self-ownership. From this right, we derive the fact that anyone who violates the self-ownership of another, in other words, anyone who initiates force or aggression against another, is violating natural law, and therefore subject to natural justice.
Mises Community Natural Rights Discussion Group
^Hmm... now I'm confused about Freedom...
ama gi:No pal. "Premeditated" means you've completely planned out what you will do and do it. If somebody breaks into my house and I shoot him, that is not "premeditated" because I didn't make up that morning and decide to kill somebody. At best, I've had 20 seconds' notice.
Okay, so someone breaks into your house. Having the gun in your drawer (or wherever) is premeditated in case of attack, right?
So in your example, that would amount to premeditated self-defence... right?
Panarchy: Okay, so someone breaks into your house. Having the gun in your drawer (or wherever) is premeditated in case of attack, right? So in your example, that would amount to premeditated self-defence... right?
Having a gun in your drawer is not "premeditated self-defense"
Its being prepared to defend yourself. "Meditated" means that you plan to perform a specific act, as in the target, time, place, etc. "Pre" in this case means "before the situation arises in which you need to protect yourself." Once an attacker enters your home, and you grab your gun, it is not premeditated, it is reacting to the situation.
I can't really think of any way there could even be "premeditated self-defense." Maybe if you know that someone is coming to hurt you, and you prepare yourself to fight back, but that is rare, and I still think that "premeditated self-defense" is a poor way of wording it.
So if you heard someone was out for you, and you 'built up', wouldn't that count as premeditated self-defense?
Or if you learn some asian discipline (Kung Fu!!!) that teaches you self-defence, then wouldn't that count as being prepared for attack? In which case, if there was an attack, you'd be prepared, because of a previous pre-meditation. In which case it would be premeditated self-defense, correct?
Panarchy: So if you heard someone was out for you, and you 'built up', wouldn't that count as premeditated self-defense? Or if you learn some asian discipline (Kung Fu!!!) that teaches you self-defence, then wouldn't that count as being prepared for attack? In which case, if there was an attack, you'd be prepared, because of a previous pre-meditation. In which case it would be premeditated self-defense, correct?
I absolutely think learning self-defense is preparing for an attack. But you aren't exactly "premeditating" anything. I think premeditation, especially in the legal context, implies that you are planning out a specific action against a specific person. I do not think that being prepared for an attack is the same thing.
In the case of knowing for sure that someone is coming to attack you, again I would say that you could call it "premeditated self-defense." I just think it misses the connotation of the phrase, because you are still reacting to some one else's threat, as opposed to actively planning to do something. I think planning out a response to something that is going to be happen is different than planning to do something yourself.
Also, I forget why this matters... >_>
BobT:Also, I forget why this matters... >_>
It doesn't: yet we must go on silly language debate before everyone admits that killing in premeditation is wrong.
I am becoming a Burkean Whig.
- F.A. Hayek
laminustacitus:killing in premeditation is wrong.
Yes. Ergo, assassination is wrong.
(can't let this wander too far from the original subject)
GilesStratton: What are you talking about?
What are you talking about?
I guess I didn't make myself understandable. I'll try to rephrase.
I'm merely advocating Rothbards libertarian "legal code" as opposed to no objective legality . Natural law as opposed to legislation. Let me see if I can explain. When someone says that libertarianism holds the non-agression principal as the fundamentals of natural law, he has implicitly accepted a centralized "system of law". But what Panarchy seems to be advocating is libertarianism without the objective law, without the NAP (this could be called a "fully decentralized system of law"). In which case, law becomes the whim of a relative majority - someone could be "legaly" "murdered" based on the fact that the relative majority wished it.
It must be observed that I am not talking about a system of courts, which should be decentralized, but I advocate an objective libertarian "legal code".
BobT:I absolutely think learning self-defense is preparing for an attack. But you aren't exactly "premeditating" anything. I think premeditation, especially in the legal context, implies that you are planning out a specific action against a specific person. I do not think that being prepared for an attack is the same thing.
A specific attack against a specific person?
What if you're waiting in the alley, with a knife, waiting for no specific person to walk into the alley so you can rob &/or kill them? Then if that random person, because he was walking around at night, decided to carry a firearm on his person, in premeditation to a robbery/fight, and he shot that person who was waiting in the alley who tried to rob/kill him?
Would that be premeditated self-defence?
JackSkylark:I'm merely advocating Rothbards libertarian "legal code" as opposed to no objective legality . Natural law as opposed to legislation. Let me see if I can explain. When someone says that libertarianism holds the non-agression principal as the fundamentals of natural law, he has implicitly accepted a centralized "system of law". But what Panarchy seems to be advocating is libertarianism without the objective law, without the NAP (this could be called a "fully decentralized system of law"). In which case, law becomes the whim of a relative majority - someone could be "legaly" "murdered" based on the fact that the relative majority wished it. It must be observed that I am not talking about a system of courts, which should be decentralized, but I advocate an objective libertarian "legal code".
My brother owns a lot of libertarian books. If you can please specify which Rothbard book the term 'legal code' was coined, I'll have a read of it.
Thanks in advance,
Panarchy
^What he said.
To darkness I condemn you...
If in anarchy somebody manages to set up some personality cult somewhere and participates in, let's say, sexual abuse of children and he's bought off the local militia or whatever, then I would have no problem finding a way to take him out.
These debates always tend toward abstract notions of justice and away from the practical reality that if there's a demand for assassins the market will supply it, abstract notions of justice be damned. But there really isn't a market for assassins in most instances because there's no ROI unless the stakes are control of a government-imposed black market. In the situation I described though, the cult leader/pedophile will have to outbid everybody outside his fiefdom who's gunning for his hide if he wants to maintain his deviant lifestyle.
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