Stingray86

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We hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! By the way, you can sign your name on talk and vote pages using four tildes, like this: ~~~~. If you have any questions, see the help pages, add a question to the village pump or ask me on my talk page. Again, welcome! --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 09:11, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

hannity and colmes

please adress the issue on the proper talk page section before removing info again. Jaakobou^{Chalk Talk} 09:39, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Adding to the above, please explain your actions on the talk page instead of resorting to ad hominem attacks against other Wikipedians. So far you have not provided a good reason not to add the Hannity & Colmes reference into the article. -- Ynhockey ^(Talk) 21:38, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

Right to self defense under international law?

Can you support your assertion, in the comment field to your unlawful combatant edit, that the right to self defense is guaranteed by international law? According to this 2006 document by the UN council on human rights, self defense is NOT a right, but at most an extenuating circumstance to be used in a criminal defense. scot (talk) 01:29, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

You're going to have to do better than that, I'm afraid. The report that you cite was issued by a subcommittee of the UN Human Rights Council. Correct me if I'm wrong, but to date it has not been adopted by the HRC, let alone the General Assembly--ergo, it does not constitute one of the "primary sources of international law," to use the report's own favored construction. Moreover, the report was prepared by a known advocate of gun-control (and apparent statist), U. Minn. Prof. Barbara Frey, and exemplifies her attempt to play a semantic game in which the concepts of right and legal defense are presented as a false dichotomy, in order to support her ultimate point: that a state's duty to protect its citizens overrides a citizen's interest (which, in Frey's mind, does not rise to a legally enforceable right) in owning and using weapons in self-defense, and thus international law should recognize that gun control is the most important right (albeit, one possessed soley by states) of all. Surely, Prof. Frey understands that a defense that excuses a person from legal liability, i.e., removes any legal prohibition against the commission of such act, and that is so recognized by the community of nations, is the functional equivalent of a right, but she nonetheless withholds this truism from the reader. Instead, Prof. Frey implies, falsely, that there is a meaningful middle ground (what I labeled an "interest" in the above example) between a right and a legal prohibition. According to Prof. Frey, a state can refuse to recognize the injury occasioned by a third party's interference with a person's exercise of a middle-level interest. But this is just a variation on the old joke about being a little bit pregnant, when in fact, you either are or you aren’t. Not only is Prof. Frey unable to square her reasoning with her (correct) assertion that customary law is a primary source of international law, she moreover cannot square it with her admission that another primary source of international law, namely, the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, expressly recognizes that “no one shall be deprived of his life” and that persons have the right to use necessary lethal force to defend the deprivation of anyone's life, i.e., the lives of persons beyond those employing lethal force, "save in the execution of a sentence of a court following conviction [of a capital offense]":

Section I – Rights and freedoms

Article 2 – Right to life

1. Everyone's right to life shall be protected by law. No one shall be deprived of his life intentionally save in the execution of a sentence of a court following his conviction of a crime for which this penalty is provided by law.

2. Deprivation of life shall not be regarded as inflicted in contravention of this article when it results from the use of force which is no more than absolutely necessary:

a. in defence of any person from unlawful violence;

b. in order to effect a lawful arrest or to prevent the escape of a person lawfully detained;

c. in action lawfully taken for the purpose of quelling a riot or insurrection.

Prof. Frey's report is an agenda-driven and deeply defective document. And it most certainly does not supervene the ECPHRFF and customary law, according to which you have the right to blow me away if I invade your country, or your Amish schoolhouse, and start mowing people down.

--Stingray86 (talk) 06:09, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

While I agree that Frey's report is agenda driven, I do not interpret the law you quote as establishing a individual right to self defense; rather I see it as establishing a governmental allowance of lethal force. In section 1, it says the government is required to protect life, and only execute those convicted of capital crimes. Section 2 is states Deprivation of life shall not be regarded as inflicted in contravention of this article... This is NOT, in my reading, in any way related to an individual, but rather relieves the government of it's obligations to not take life under certain circumstances. This is borne out by 2b and 2c; certainly shooting of escaping prisoners or quelling riots are not situations where a private individual might be compelled to use lethal force, rather they are situations where the government might desire to use force. Add to this laws like the British definition under 1953 Prevention of Crime Act 1953, of an offensive weapon, which is any article made or adapted for use to causing injury to the person, or intended by the person having it with him for such use. That bans public possession of everything from handguns to pointed sticks (see Section 139 of the Criminal Justice Act 1988) to bananas, assuming you are in possession of such with the intent of injuring a potential attacker. Possession of such weapon also constitutes premeditation (why would you be carrying it unless you were planning on using it?), which is the sole requirement for a charge of murder under British law should you kill someone, and that gets you an automatic life sentence. Even a group as diametrically opposed to Frey's agenda as the Cato Institute says that effective self defense is, for all practical purposes, forbidden in Britain. scot (talk) 18:39, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

Three-revert rule

You have reverted unlawful combatant 3 times in 24 hours please read the Wikipedia:Three-revert rule --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 09:11, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Pierre Rehov

I am stumped as to why you reverted Jaakobou's edit to Pierre Rehov. Despite the former's edit summary, he actually pretty much returned the article to its original state, with some minor tweaks. The material was sourced, and the seemingly imbalanced part was an indirect quote from Pierre Rehov (this was clearly stated in the artlce), making it relevant. Please point out the exact reason why you disagreed with Jaakobou's edit. -- Ynhockey ^(Talk) 17:23, 30 January 2008 (UTC)