Quote of the day—Justin Curmi

The main problem with the notion of self-defense is it imposes on justice, for everyone has the right for a fair trial. Therefore, using a firearm to defend oneself is not legal because if the attacker is killed, he or she is devoid of his or her rights.

Justin Curmi
April 26, 2017
A Revision on the Bill of Rights, Part III
[H/T to Kimberly Morin.

Unless you have crap for brains there is no problem here. The right of self-defense trumps the right to a fair trial. Another way to look at it is that the perpetrator gave up their right to fair trial for the duration of the violent attack.

In much of the rest of the post Curmi is beyond dimwitted and travels deep into incoherency.—Joe]

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13 thoughts on “Quote of the day—Justin Curmi

  1. The formulation I remember, perhaps from Locke, is that the attacker initiates a state of war between himself and his victim. While this state of war exists, the attacker has essentially cancelled the rights of normal peaceful interaction.

    • Wherever you recalled that logic from, it’s IMO, sound.

      I was going along the lines that an attacker forfeits their rights when they depart from civilized behavior.

      To better respond, I went to the Huffpo link and read the post. Nonsensical is being kind. That people present such drivel in a public forum is astounding.

      Shit for brains is a label or saying that comes to mind.

      • Look up the definition of Dunning-Kruger and certainly read Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s article, “Intellectual Yet Idiot”.

  2. The right to a trial is afforded to one once one is peaceably in the hands of the police.

    If you resist arrest with violence, is your right to a trial being abrogated if the police shoot you until you knock it off, possibly with the result of your demise? No.

    You have the right to be taken into custody by the police peacefully, justified by immediately perceivable and artictulable probable cause or a warrant entailing specifics. Once in custody, you have the right to fair treatment, access to counsel, a trial by jury, right to confront your accusers, right to see and challenge the evidence against you, et ceteras. That’s all the stuff you get once you consent to participate in the adversarial justice system. Operating a fair, transparent and organized justice system is one of the things that even libertarians recognize as a necessary element of a government.

    The alternative to the state operated justice system is the rougher form of justice you get at the hands of the offended and possibly their surviving relatives and friends. That is the ol’ standby: some rope, a tree, a mob, some assembly required and then a few last words to make the case that you shouldn’t be hanged until dead, dead, dead.

    My final thought is about the word ‘outlaw’: where did that come from? It meant someone who was outside the protection of the law, and thus is was not a crime to kill them. By contrast, one who lived within and subject to the law (i.e. they ‘abide’ within the law) is protected from mob justice and afforded many rights to protect themselves from false accusation, or simply to require a rigorous standard of proof before sanction.

    The choice to live outside the law entails many foreseeable but not entirely predictable consequences. Ignorance of these consequences does not in any way make them go away.

    • Foreseeable yet not predictable. That’s a good parsing of the concept.
      i don’t recall any bit of predictable being discussed in Torts, where my esteemed Professor once said, “on a clear day, you can foresee forever”.

  3. Curmi doesn’t seem concerned about the rights of the victim. Once the victim is murdered, HIS right to a fair trial has been deprived. By Curmi’s reasoning, the murderer must never be stopped by force.

    But the leftist agitators know all of this perfectly well. Do not presume to be in any position to educate them. The problem lies rather in what YOU don’t know.

    It is not a lack of knowledge or intelligence, but a wrong allegiance that drives the authoritarian. He identifies more with the criminal, with the bomb-thrower, than with the principled, moral, American peace-keeper. He’ll be personally offended when a criminal attacker is harmed or treated with disrespect.

    Again and again I remind you that the Progressive Marxists have done an excellent job of muddling, overtaking and replacing American principles. Call them stupid, call them crazy, call them brain-damaged, but they’ve managed to undermine and take significant control of the most prosperous society in history. They’ve done it right under your nose and in broad daylight, and you call them stupid.

    They’ve got you right where they want you; bitching, calling them names, being upset, being shocked at their “stupidity” and therefore unable to do anything meaningful about it. That’s pretty damned clever.

  4. It’s the basic difference between natural rights and civil rights.

    Natural rights are those you have by virtue of existing as a human being. Life, liberty and property being the most basic descriptors. They are by definition negative, in that they prevent others from doing something to you. They don’t impose a burden on anyone else. Your natural right to life is a prohibition on my killing you. Your right to self defense is the enforcement mechanism of that prohibition.

    Civil rights are defined by the laws of the nation you reside in. In a justly organized nation, civil rights exist to foster a good relationship with the gov’t and prevent abuses by the gov’t. The civil right of a jury trial exists to prevent the gov’t from abusing it’s citizens by throwing them in prison without cause under the law.

    Civil rights have no meaning outside the bounds of interaction with the gov’t. Therefore, the use of self defense to protect life rights, does not infringe on the civil right to a jury trial.

  5. Lyle has it right. The goal of the Left is to remove the right of self-defense and then all manner of attacks and deprivation of rights is possible. Those on the Left cannot do the evil things they intend if we can resist. If they cannot take away our firearms, they will make it impossible to legally use them.

    See the case in Britain where the farmer shot the intruder and the entire might of the judicial system was brought to bear on him (after the repeated failure of their police and justice system to protect him).

  6. A physical attack offends me. I will therefore defend myself.
    In the law of WA, and of God, the aggressor is at fault.
    The result is on him, (or her).
    Remorse is reserved for the deserving.
    Whether the referenced author is criminal or stupid or both means nothing to me.

  7. Second: to broaden the discussion, Let’s address the Marxists, Socialists, Communists or Democrats- whatever name they choose for the moment- they are all the same.
    The meme is:
    Power for me, not for you. Decisions by me, for you to obey. Resources for me, castoffs for you. And so on.
    They understand not that there are those who will not bow, will not acquiesce, will not grovel.
    Come and take it.

  8. From this link about self defense as found in John Locke’s Second Treatise on Civil Government:

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2014/02/27/the-lockean-right-of-self-defense-and-stand-your-ground-laws/?utm_term=.a2072e9550cd

    But force, or a declared design of force, upon the person of another, where there is no common superior on earth to appeal to for relief, is the state of war: and it is the want of such an appeal gives a man the right of war even against an aggressor, tho’ he be in society and a fellow subject. Thus a thief, whom I cannot harm, but by appeal to the law, for having stolen all that I am worth, I may kill, when he sets on me to rob me but of my horse or coat; because the law, which was made for my preservation, where it cannot interpose to secure my life from present force, which, if lost, is capable of no reparation, permits me my own defence, and the right of war, a liberty to kill the aggressor, because the aggressor allows not time to appeal to our common judge, nor the decision of the law, for remedy in a case where the mischief may be irreparable.

    • Yes! It isn’t vigilanteism at that point. It only becomes so the next day or whenever the heat of the moment cools, when someone can refer to the wrong in the past tense and say, “Oh, I know where he lives.”
      Simple yet important distinctions Leftists must prevent us from making at all costs.

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