Dams, nuclear weapons, chemical factories, and other potentially dangerous structures can cause enormous amount of damage if their potential is abused. If someone builds a chemical factory next to my house I think I have the right to check how safe is the factory. A nuclear plant even 500 kilometers away in some remote desert can still kill you and your family. I believe a person can demand that a minimum set of safety regulations is followed at least to see that the operator is not some psychopat who doesn’t care about the damage his/her property can cause.
Having said that, what do you think is the criteria for such intervention in property rights? After all for a single person anyone with a gun can potentially be dangerous. What makes dams, nuclear plants and other such structures much more frightening is that they can destroy entire cities and communities. However is it jutsified to intervene in property rights just because many people are threatened?
You mean like the threat of of airplanes being hijacked and flow into the World Trade Center? The state didn’t do too good of a job of preventing that.
Some very insightful ideas have been thrown on these forums on topics such as this. Nukes have been interpreted to constitute a continuous threat to anyone in the blast range, regardless of the actual intentions of the holder. This gives those threatened the right to violently remove the threat. I tend to agree with this interpretation. Of course, if those within the range explicitly waive their right to forcibly remove the thread (say, by accepting the term of entry into the property of the nuke owner), the nuke cane be held safely.
As of dams, though they are far, far more dangerous than nukes (which, after all, have some very complex safety features), they are not meant to aggress, hence cannot be considered to present a credible threat. Now, they may or may not present a credible risk, but that itself gives no one any ground of action. A credible threat would.
Eugene believes he is following the NAP to its fullest when he refuses to charge people for hiring hitmen but he thinks regulating dams and nuclear power plants is fine?
Merlin, why do you think it is legitimate to demand regulation of nukes and not guns? It is true that nukes threaten more people, but since when the number of people threatened changes application of NAP?
Eugene believes he is following the NAP to its fullest when he refuses to charge people for hiring hitmen but he thinks regulating dams and nuclear power plants is fine?
I’m not saying that nukes should be regulated, in the sense of you having to apply somewhere for a ‘permit’. Neither am I saying that nukes are more dangerous than dams. I repeat what I wrote before: dams are far more dangerous in practice than nukes. A ‘terrorist’, even if he could get a nuke, would probably be unable to use it due to the sophisticated coding techniques needed to arm it. On the other hand, he must only get some homemade explosives on a dam to potentially kill tens of thousands.
What I am saying is that living within the blast radius of a nuke is like living in a house that is being targeted by a tank owned by your neighbor: a credible threat. What this means is that you can violently remove the threat, and that’s it. If you choose not to, that is your choice.
If I want to keep a nuke, I need not apply for any permit. I just have to either buy a waiver of liability form the guys living in the blast radius, or otherwise convince them not to violently try to remove the nuke. If I’m a nice guy (or a reputable company), I do not see why people would choose to violently make me remove my nuke. I could, also, just hide the nuke and that would make me liable from nothing.
The dam is more dangerous but is not athreat, in the sense that its nature makes it unlikely to be used in aggression. Hence, you cannot forcibly prevent a dam from being built. That is how I’d interpret the threat part of the NAP anyway.
Merlin, a person with a gun is also a threat. At any time he can launch an attack against you. If you ask me what is more dangerous, living in a neighborhood filled with ex-criminals owning guns or living next to a reputable private defense agency which owns a nuclear weapon, it is clear to me that living in a violent neighborhood is more dangerous.
And by the way, while you can live in a gun-free neighborhood, you can’t live in a “nuclear plant” free neighborhood because nuclear plants melt down can affect all land in a very big radius.
If your neighbor makes a habit of pointing the gun at you, then yes, it is a credible threat. A nuke is ALWAY pointed at you, a gun is not. By your reasoning cars, cutlery, rope and clothing are all as dangerous as a nuke because they can be used to assault you at any time.
I was referring to the situation in which the nuke is in ‘your neighborhood’, ie, the blast is going to take you with it. In this situtation, which is what I understood the situation was according to the op, the nuke is not akin to your neighbor owning a gun, but it is more like your neighbor keeping a gun pointed at you 24/7.
I’ve decided to work out a theory behind that list, maybe it will be the Theory of Bert’s List, but it’s so ridiculous that I can only post it in it’s own thread.
This has some merit, no doubt. I guess that a ‘secured’ warhead, i.e. one that is not armed, would be about as dangerous as a nuclear plant: risky, but not a threat. You cannot stop a plant only because it might meld down (you cannot punish someone because he may commit a crime), so you cannot stop me from having an unarmed (but armable) nuke, just because I could arm it in the future.
Well done, I refined my position on nukes yet again. Only armed weapons can be violently disarmed. If you violently break in the compound where nukes are held, and they you discover that they are unarmed, you are liable for having broken into someone’s property. If they are armed, you may disarm them, or otherwise neutralize the threat.
In practice not even governments hold armed nukes at the ready (you need a complex armament sequence to even get them going, not to mention that many weapons must have their radioactive core manually inserted into the explosive jacket), let alone private companies tomorrow! Thus, for all practical purposes, nukes would be allowed in a free society. A welcome addition, I say!
PS: as for you second objection, that I could launch it far away, that does not stand. If I point a gun at you, I may fire it at some guy behind you, but you are still entitled to take action in view of the threat I pose. So, if the nuke is armed, you can act no matter in what kind of delivery vector it is.
Though if you think about it 1/2 the people in the old days were very beligerent and counterproductive to any production of forming thoughts through dialgoue. I actually think as a whole the forum has gotten a bit more focused and encouraging one to focus one’s thoughts better, even if it has lost a bit of color.
Anyway, I think there is some discretion with people like this - and I am of the opinion Eugene just states things to confirm his own bias, and for the most part it isn’t even an admiral bias. My 2 cents, though you are right I should be more patient and tolerable of people who post and if not abide by the old “if you don’t have anything nice to say…” maxim
