Aeriedad,
John's spot-on. Words mean very specific things. Those might not be exactly the things you -- or a majority of the people you're used to discussing matters with -- understand them to mean. This is true in lots of fields of study, but especially so when discussing law and the philosophical basis for law.
So when a lawyer explains the origins and derivations of philosophical constructs like rights, sometimes the terms mean things that don't quite line up with what folks commonly think they do. That can seem contrarian or even pedantic because most of us aren't used to speaking with rigorous etymological discipline. But to a lawyer -- and to anyone who really wants to understand these ideas as they really are (rather than as we might believe or wish them to be) -- the fine distinctions are very important.
But sometimes trying to bridge the gap between the socially informal and casual uses of speech and the formal language of law (or science, or philosophy) can be difficult and can make folks feel excluded and looked down upon. I'm sure that's not fiddletown's intent. If you were sitting in a lecture hall listening to him explain these principles while standing behind a lecturn, you'd take his words in a different light than when you read those same words in an online forum where we generally assume to be among peers.
Sam (and others),
I might not have replied at all because there seemed no way to avoid the continuing topic drift. But since it's drifting anyway, here goes...
Pedantic. Before you used the word in your reply to me, it had already been on my mind all night. Someone made the contrast between our relative unconcern about automobile licensing requirements vs. firearm licensing requirements, especially with regard to defensive carry. Another person stated, perhaps imprecisely, that driving an automobile is a privilege, but owning a handgun is a natural right.
At that point, fiddletown presented a lecture on the origins of R2KBA in Western jurisprudence, but that owning a handgun is not itself a natural right. 9mm was correct to caution me that my response of "Yes it is" was inadequate, both in terms of form and substance. I agree; my response to fiddletown should have been, "So what?"
We are in neither a courtroom nor a law school lecture hall. For the purpose of the contrasting automobile and handgun possession, is the difference between actual natural rights and the fact that they are the basis for much of the BOR so important? Again, it's an Internet forum, not a lecture hall. Still, you do make a good point: I would care more for fiddletown's lectures in a more appropriate environment. He's smart, knows what he's talking about, and I usually agree with him on substance. But he also is the chief representative of my primary dissatisfaction with THR: Most of his posts have the underlying theme, "Listen to me; I'm smarter than you."
It's the Internet, so I might have to deal with pedantic from time to time. But when I've had enough, I might say so. I'll try to be less combative about it in the future.
