[governance] Right to self-defence

[Aldo Matteucci]

Dear Paul,

I have not dealt with your "right of self-defence" line in my reply to your
post, because the argument, as formulated, is not germane to the core
issue - hence this separate post:

   - the right to self-defence against a private attack was covered by
   common law as taken on lock stock and barrel by the states at the moment of
   independence. It is, to my knowledge part of the state penal code, not a
   federal right.
   - the US Bill of Rights exclusively deals with the rights of the
   citizens in respect of the state, so the right of self-defence against a
   private person would not apply, unless the context is specific (e.g. biases
   of state juries, which denied the citizen protection under the law).
   - In a "citizen-vs.-state" context the "right of self-defence" may be
   interpreted to be "right of secession". What American patriots did in 1776
   was to secede from the British Kingdom (they called it "declare
   independence"). They won their independence in the battlefield (and thanks
   to Spanish money, arms, and military action). The Civil War was fought  "to
   defend the union", hence over the secession issue (as well as slavery), and
   the right to secession denied, in the battlefield. Wilson took "no
   secession" to Versailles in 1918, married it to the "right of
   self-determination" and got us all in the mess we lived through in WWII.
   And still do  today, as Jovan and the history of the Balkans can attest.

I'll leave it to you to mull over the question whether there is a
self-evident "natural or human right" to secession.
Some issues just can't be decided in principle, and are best left to
circumstances

Aldo



-- 
Aldo Matteucci
65, Pourtalèsstr.
CH 3074 MURI b. Bern
Switzerland
aldo.matteucci at gmail.com
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