octopenis:

An Atheist and a Christian sit down at a bar. They both knock back a few drinks and enjoy each others company because they aren’t pretentious assholes.

(via call-me-cocaine)

kohenari:

Since when do people think they have an inalienable human right to be vigilantes?

I understand that people want to feel safe and believe that having a gun in the home will enable them to defend themselves. And I understand that acting in one’s self-defense is a legitimate legal defense. But using the language of self-defense to defend oneself in the (rare) case of shooting an assailant is not the same thing as asserting a human right to defend oneself.

To be sure, if we read a foundational text like John Locke’s Second Treatise of Government, we find a natural right to punish anyone who would harm us in our life, liberty, health, or possessions. In the state of nature, Locke tells us, each person is effectively judge, jury, and executioner unto herself. And, of course, it’s precisely the problem of a lack of independent judgment in the state of nature that leads people to join together to form a political community.

But for people to establish a political community, Locke asserts that people must give up to the government their natural right to punish criminal behavior and agree to have the government settle grievances. This is why we have standing laws that are meant to be applied equally by independent officers of the law and by the courts.

So, again, where is all of this talk of self-defense and vigilantism coming from?

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