^ Not a bad solution to population control. The pig-headed idiots and brutes die first. The weak and those without will to live also loses and dies. It's also a good way of maintaining a level of intelligence in the human race too I might add. Haha...
Gunfights and Duels?
- Thread starter Baron Max
- Start date
Why do you constantly assume that duels are always "to the death"? It could be a simple fight out behind the bar or at a park ....two men fighting with sticks or clubs, anything. It doesn't necessarily mean to the death. So as I see it, with that out of the way, you would agree with duels, right?
Now you're questioning that an adult can give his consent??? Can I use that same argument in the case of gay sex and same-sex marriage ...that they don't know what they're doin' so shouldn't be allowed to give their consent?
Who made up that rule?
No one is forcing anyone to do anything ...and yet you seem to think it's human nature to accept a duel. Are you advocating that we strip humans of any and all emotion, thus never being led into such confrontations?
Don't know where you got that idea?
Baron Max
Pandaemoni
Valued Senior Member
Again, because that's what your original post talks about. You speak of old fashioned duels and gunfights (and knife fights) Gunfights are not designed to be non-lethal. Duels were customarily not "to the pain."
I've already indicated that non-lethal competitions, like boxing matches, are *already* possible under current law, and are not deemed unethical by society at large. Why you want to be able to throw down behind a bar with clubs is beyond me, since duels were even more formal than that (there had to be notice, time to consider, tome to arrange for a "second" and then there would be a duel).
Fighting behind a bar suggests that the decision to duel was being made on teh spur of the moment and without reflection. If you can't see why that would be a bad idea, then I am not teacher enough to explain it.
Consent is a thorny issue in dueling because dueling usually had more to do with social pressure and wanting to avoid being seen as a coward than it had to do with actually "wanting to fight." No one engages in gay sex because they're afraid of what people will say if they don't (it's quite the opposite, in fact). You'll never hear, "I didn't want to put my penis in that man's ass, but my parents would have been ashamed of me if I had refused." Travel into the past, however, and you could find young men fighting in duels, not because they wanted a fight, but because their parents would have been mortified if they'd refused the challenge.
People *can* consent to fight, because they want to fight, but historically it has proven more complicated than that. Now, you have said before, in effect, "So what? That's the way life works," but I think that misses the point. If duels are about men choosing to fight because they want to fight, that's one thing. If you can't convince your opponent to fight you without coercing him (or having society coerce him), then that's a very different thing.
I've said it before, if you could limit duels to those cases in which both men really are keen to fight one another, then I would have no problem with that (even in the case of lethal duels). That would require taking peer pressure and affects on societal reputation out of the equation, so I doubt it's possible. It's those effects that made duels and dueling disastrous, imo.
In any event, contrary to your assertion in post #1, dueling would *not* settle arguments, as even if someone refused to fight you, he'd still win his argument with you. The fact that you could only "win" by challenging him to fight, means that you couldn't beat his argument logically, and hence is indicative that his argument was the superior one. Might does not make right in the course of a debate.
If someone were to call you, let's say, a cuckold, you then challenge him to a duel, and he refuses because he is afraid, his charge cuckoldry still stands. What you seem to want (judging from your initial post) is a way of forcing him to recant his opinion or his argument. As I've also indicated in my prior posts, that is really a logical fallacy writ large—an ad hominem where you literally attack the person when you can't marshal the facts to defeat his argument. You can't declare yourself the winner of the argument simply because you scared your opponent with threats of physical violence because, logically speaking, he can be both "completely right" and "scared to fight" at the same time.
Society. If you were challenged to a duel and you refused, you were deemed a coward. Throughout most of the history of dueling, that was the end of your respectable life. You couldn't get credit, you couldn't be elected to public office, you'd be ostracized by your friends, etc. That is why Alexander Hamilton suggested to his son Philip that he couldn't back out of the duel to which Philip was challenged, to do so would have been the end of his public respectability.
Just as the person who was challenged to the duel could not ignore it, neither could the man who issued the challenge. If you challenged someone to a duel, and that person accepted, you either fought him, or lost your ability to function in your society.
Again, as I have written above, I am using history as my guide. It seems to me (and if I am wrong, please correct me) that you seem to have formed your views on dueling and its effects on society without an historical basis, save your knowledge that dueling used to be more socially acceptable. What you seem to lack is an understanding of the reasons why dueling fell out of favor. Dueling was not the great social palliative that you imagine it was.
My mistake. I will try to keep in mind that, notwithstanding your initial post, you include non-lethal duels. I would still say,however, that you are free to join a gym with a boxing ring, and then invite your rivals to come fight you there. The only thing is that society will not tell those people, if they refuse your challenge, that they will be ostracized and cut off as they would have been in the past. If you can convince them to fight you, then you can find legal means of doing that (non-lethally), but you can't rely on social pressures to "force" them to fight you.
Again, it's those social pressures (which were endemic to the nature of dueling, historically) that made "consent" an issue. Many people did not choose to fight because they wanted to fight (with which I am personally fine), they chose to fight because the societal impact of refusing would have been crippling. A duelist shouldn't be able to rely on society at large to force his opponents to fight him, he should be able to convince his foe on his own, free of any coercion.
You're assuming much too much!
If you don't know the difference between a private duel and a boxing match, then ..."If you can't see (the difference), then I am not teacher enough to explain it."
So because you think it's a bad idea, then you're not going to allow anyone else to take part in duels? Are you always so insistent about other people doing what you like and not doing what you don't like?
As it is now, there are many, many such "duels" fought all over towns and cities in the world, but most are not organized and controlled as a duel would be. And thus the cops can actually arrest the guys and cause even more animosity between them ...which might, could, lead to something worse at a later date.
So now you want to make the determination about other people's "consent"? Wow, you really have a control issue, don't you? You want to control whether or not they can fight, duel or whatever ....now you want to be the one to determine whether consent was given after the consent was actually given!
The remainder of your post is just more of the same ...attempting to show that people should not be given the freedoms to duel or fight with someone or, as you've been perfectly clear, they also can't be permitted to consent to something that they consent to!
Mamby-pamby, wimpy, weak, bleeding heart liberals controlling the lives of others ....and using long, involved, bullshit speeches to try to sway others to do as they want them to do ...be mamby-pamby, wimpy, weak, bleeding heart liberals like themselves!
Baron Max
Pandaemoni
Valued Senior Member
Baron:
Please indicate to me, historically, where duels have *ever* been a net positive influence on society in your view. Duels got banned because they were imposing serious social costs on the system and because society started to see that duels were being fought over matters that the society as a whole found to be trivial.
You are plainly not the champion of libertarianism, as you're happy to control other people even in cases where their private decisions impose no substantial costs on you, but more importantly you are completely ignoring the reasons that duels were criminalized in the first place. At this point I have to believe that the reason you never speak to that point is that you have no answer for it.
In any event it's not me evaluating each duelist's consent, it's simply pointing out the truth of how one forms one's consent. Whether the consent was properly given in a particular case is, as I said, a complicated question and it is up to YOU, the proponent of change, to tell ME how we determine whether consent is valid in a world where someone who may prefer not to fight nonetheless feels that he must. In your view, the answer is (I'm sure) "If he accepts the challenge, then he has consented," but that is a facile argument because it ignores the coercive element that was historically present. You either have to provide some reason to believe that there will be no coercion in your new system (and hence differentiate it from historical examples) or you have to argue that such social pressure, coercive or not, is not a bad thing. You've done neither. You simply insult me by colling me "controlling" because I have exposed a flaw in your worldview in pointing out the (obvious) coercive element in the historical dueling system—and, I suspect, because you no not have a good argument to downplay the issues such a coercive element creates.
If we lived in the world you wanted, no doubt you'd have already challenged me to a duel—since the best you have is weak tripe like "you really have a control issue," and suggesting I'm a "namby-pamby, wimpy,weak, bleeding heart liberal." Guess what? Those are ad hominem arguments, and thus not logical refutations of anything I've said. That's the problem with your proposed use of duels to settle arguments too, so I suppose it makes sense that you like both. If you have any non-fallacious arguments to raise, please raise them. I'm half tempted to start you off, playing devil's advocate.
Sadly, if you had already challenged me to a duel in a world where I'd be socially coerced into accepting, you'd already be dead and we wouldn't be having this lovely debate.
Please indicate to me, historically, where duels have *ever* been a net positive influence on society in your view. Duels got banned because they were imposing serious social costs on the system and because society started to see that duels were being fought over matters that the society as a whole found to be trivial.
You are plainly not the champion of libertarianism, as you're happy to control other people even in cases where their private decisions impose no substantial costs on you, but more importantly you are completely ignoring the reasons that duels were criminalized in the first place. At this point I have to believe that the reason you never speak to that point is that you have no answer for it.
In any event it's not me evaluating each duelist's consent, it's simply pointing out the truth of how one forms one's consent. Whether the consent was properly given in a particular case is, as I said, a complicated question and it is up to YOU, the proponent of change, to tell ME how we determine whether consent is valid in a world where someone who may prefer not to fight nonetheless feels that he must. In your view, the answer is (I'm sure) "If he accepts the challenge, then he has consented," but that is a facile argument because it ignores the coercive element that was historically present. You either have to provide some reason to believe that there will be no coercion in your new system (and hence differentiate it from historical examples) or you have to argue that such social pressure, coercive or not, is not a bad thing. You've done neither. You simply insult me by colling me "controlling" because I have exposed a flaw in your worldview in pointing out the (obvious) coercive element in the historical dueling system—and, I suspect, because you no not have a good argument to downplay the issues such a coercive element creates.
If we lived in the world you wanted, no doubt you'd have already challenged me to a duel—since the best you have is weak tripe like "you really have a control issue," and suggesting I'm a "namby-pamby, wimpy,weak, bleeding heart liberal." Guess what? Those are ad hominem arguments, and thus not logical refutations of anything I've said. That's the problem with your proposed use of duels to settle arguments too, so I suppose it makes sense that you like both. If you have any non-fallacious arguments to raise, please raise them. I'm half tempted to start you off, playing devil's advocate.
Sadly, if you had already challenged me to a duel in a world where I'd be socially coerced into accepting, you'd already be dead and we wouldn't be having this lovely debate.
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Not everything must have a positive influence on society. And by the way, which "society" are you talking about?
And yet duels of all kinds were fought well into the 1900s. In New York City and Boston, duels were banned by the hoity-toity control groups, yet in the frontier west, they were still trying to kill off the savages or throw them into reservations, ....and duels were fought openly on the streets.
Then those same/similar hoity-toity folks of NYC and Boston came out west and ....yep, tried to mold THAT society into what they felt was proper. See? It's all about control ...controlling the thoughts, the actions, the emotions, the very way of life, of other people in other areas. And you think that's a good thing?
See? When you, or anyone, say "society", it has to have some meaning and some clear definition.
What you're basically saying is that in YOUR "society", you don't want dueling to be legal, therefore you don't want dueling to be legal in any other society on Earth! Had it not been for the hoity-toities of the east pushing into the west, the people of the west would still be perfectly happy having gunfights in the middle of the streets at high noon ...and think it was a perfectly acceptable way of settling arguments and conflicts.
No, I'm not. See, like I said above, it was criminalized by people in NYC or Boston who wanted to control everyone, all across the nation, and weren't content to control their own society, but had to force their views onto others and other societies.
And here, you're trying to do the same thing ...you don't like duels, you think they're not a good thing, so you want to force your views onto all others and other societies.
It's all about controlling your fellow man, forcing him to think more and more like you. And thus is the reason, the cause, of most conflicts in the world, and thus, the cause of wars.
How do you think World War II would have been if, BEFORE the war, some Englishman challenged Hitler to a duel? Had Hitler backed down, he'd have been the laughing stock of his own people.
Baron Max
Buffalo Roam
Registered Senior Member
The problem with the Duel is that the Liberals would be in short supply very quickly, they are the one who love to insult the honor of others by their projection, and they don't have the skill or intestinal fortitude to really back their mouth with their butt.
They love to call names and then hide behind the skirts of others claiming civilization as their protection, when in fact they are to cowardly to protect the civilization they live in.
They love to call names and then hide behind the skirts of others claiming civilization as their protection, when in fact they are to cowardly to protect the civilization they live in.
Buffalo Roam
Registered Senior Member
Again Swords are a high skill weapon, those with the coordination, time and money to acquire the skill of a swords man have a major advantage, Using a gun requires some skill to, but if I was a second to a gun duel, I could instruct and ready a Duelist in about a hour so as to have the ability to hit a man size target at 20 paces. The big thing about a duel, in that manner, is that the gun, really did make men equal, it wasn't a weapon of strength, or major coordination, the average man could easily handled the weapons, and then it was down to the Courage of Your Conviction, I have been on the wrong end of a gun far to often, and have survived because I kept my head and did thing with in hasty deliberation, but even then in combat shit happens, and it comes out of no where, in a Duel it is just you and the Other Guy.
Buffalo Roam, allow me to introduce myself, I am a liberal with enough intestinal fortitude to stand up for what I believe. (And I would say that on 7 out of 10 issues I side with Ted Kennedy- now that’s liberal!) However, my father taught me how to shoot a gun before I was 10, and I’ve also taken a few fencing lessons, and so (regrettable) I must agree with at least one statement you’ve made, that the gun did make all men equal. This is why until about 1870 in America pistol dueling was the Average Joe’s way of settling things with another man. And those Americans didn’t waste their time fighting about poetry, art, or “just for the hell of it” as another blogger wrote. They met on the field of honor over matters they thought were important – politics (slavery and states rights were the main causes) and honor, an unknown or laughable concept to many of our fellow bloggers, but not to me. (BTW, after reading some of the comments above, I wouldn’t waste good powder and shot on most of these people. The one possible exception is the fellow you quote, Fugu-Dono. He seems to be opposed to dueling, but he might fight one himself, if it were fought with swords.) So, please, don’t assume all liberals are alike.
The question is, is dueling an outmoded concept? I must admit, I think it is because I can’t envision a reason why anyone would want to take a chance on killing someone, or being killed. No issue is that important. Even the issue of slavery wasn’t settled on a dueling field, unless you consider the entire Civil War one big duel. And in this world of Paris Hilton and Michael Jackson, the concept of honor is considered just as old fashion as the duel itself.
The question is, is dueling an outmoded concept? I must admit, I think it is because I can’t envision a reason why anyone would want to take a chance on killing someone, or being killed. No issue is that important. Even the issue of slavery wasn’t settled on a dueling field, unless you consider the entire Civil War one big duel. And in this world of Paris Hilton and Michael Jackson, the concept of honor is considered just as old fashion as the duel itself.
BobtheBuilder
Registered Member
I don't think that the second party should have to conceed the point should they back down from the duel, but I do believe that dueling should be an option.
Also, it should be done with swords, cuz that is cool. Think Count of Monte Cristo.
Also, it should be done with swords, cuz that is cool. Think Count of Monte Cristo.
Buffalo Roam
Registered Senior Member
purebred
And that is why we are in the straights we are in, you as a liberal don't have the concept of something that is worth dieing for so your statement as to understanding Honor and being a Honorable person rings Hollow, There are thing in this world that are worth taking the chance of dieing to defend, Our Constitution and Country for one, and if some one went after any of the people near and dear to me my Honor would require action that would place my life at risk, but to make the statement that nothing is worth dieing for show that you have no Honor, and doesn't even understand the concept of what is Honor.
You be the purebred, that seems to be the breading grounds for those with out Honor, me I'm a mongrel, and I have never had any who know me ever doubt that I have and Know about Honor, there are thing that you have to defend.
And that is why we are in the straights we are in, you as a liberal don't have the concept of something that is worth dieing for so your statement as to understanding Honor and being a Honorable person rings Hollow, There are thing in this world that are worth taking the chance of dieing to defend, Our Constitution and Country for one, and if some one went after any of the people near and dear to me my Honor would require action that would place my life at risk, but to make the statement that nothing is worth dieing for show that you have no Honor, and doesn't even understand the concept of what is Honor.
You be the purebred, that seems to be the breading grounds for those with out Honor, me I'm a mongrel, and I have never had any who know me ever doubt that I have and Know about Honor, there are thing that you have to defend.
No issue is that important???? Thankfully, for your freedoms, others thought that freedom WAS important enough to die for. But you don't think so??
Just because YOU can't imagine it is not sign that others can't. So are you advocating forcing your views onto others? Some people think some issues ARE that important, that you can't see that is not a good sign for you.
Interesting ...and perhaps, in many ways, the Civil War, perhaps all wars, really are just big duels, big challenges, ....my boys can beat up your boys!
Baron Max
Pandaemoni
Valued Senior Member
Before refuting your post, perhaps we should try a new tack, Baron. perhaps you could define what a "duel" is. What do you see as the characteristics of a duel? You seem to me at times to be referring to classical "duels of honor" and later referring to little more than a bar fight and without all the formalism of the classical duel.
Is a "duel" in your eyes just one guy saying, "Let's fight" and the other responding "Okay!" followed by an immediate fight. Should be notice? A chance for reflection? Witnesses? Who chooses the weapons/form of the duel? If the challenged person were to say "I choose to box you, " why would that be unacceptable?
I was implicitly using it in reference to "western culture" in general (and then in other instances, I was using it to mean modern western culture, the one where most people have rejected lethal dueling as immoral.)
For purposes of your providing a counter example, where dueling was a positive (or at least "non-negative") economic and/or social influence, though, feel free to select any culture, oriental, occidental or other.
And yet those fights were still illegal. The Old West was not exactly like it is portrayed in the movies. Shooting a man because he insulted you was murder, even in the territories. You might get away with it, but that's because the legal system is imperfect, and authorities sometimes do not enforce the law against everyone. Say a man catches his wife in bed with his best friend, and shoots him dead without warning, that is definitely *not* a "duel," and yet many a man has gotten away with just that. The Old West did not have a "gunfight a day" even in the most lawless areas, medieval Madrid did go through a period where by some estimates 5-10 young nobles were dying a day from dueling before the Counsel of Trent started threatening participants with excommunication.
Dueling was separately criminalized after that, and it wasn't exactly "the hoity-toity" who banned it, sort of...or rather it was the hoity-toity who banned it, but it was only the hoity-toity who were allowed to duel in the first place. Dueling was usually only for the aristocracy. If Joe Peasant met with Bob the Miller to duel, usually both would be in trouble with the law if caught, even in those periods when dueling was legal, because it was a privilege of the aristocracy and men-at-arms. (The rule in America was slightly different since we had no nobility, but in the U.S. it was still considered unseemly for people of different social classes to duel, and completely inappropriate for an upper class person to challenge a lower class person to a duel.)
Since typically only aristocrats were allowed to challenge people to duels anyway, it makes sense that the aristocracy would be the ones to criminalize it. Also, you should know that duels were not banned all at once. At first attempts were made to limit the "stupid duels." One of the reasons duels were considered to be for the aristocrats only was that the commoners were considered to be not sophisticated enough to use the privilege properly. That restriction aside, there were various attempts to make it illegal to duel over women unless the women consented, limit duels over trivial sums of money (Louis VII, for example, banned duels over sums of less than five sous around 1160 A.D.), and even codes that prescribed what sorts of insults were not cause enough to warrant a challenge.
You misunderstand the history. Dueling was never legal in America, not in the East, not in the west. People didn't move from the East and then criminalize it. What happened dueling was *always* illegal under English common law (even before Jamestown was settled)./* Jamestown imported English common law with them (as did the rest of British North America). English law was in fact far more strict on duelists than continental law, since in England the laws against dueling were actually strictly enforced. Even challenging another person to a duel was a crime (called "incitement")./** (In France, in contrast, even after duels were banned the king would usually liberally grant pardons to those involved, so prosecutions became increasingly rare over time.) As a result, duels were far less common in Britain than in other European nations.
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/* Except as in the course of a criminal trial, when trial by combat was still technically allowed. That said, though it remained on the books, in actual practice trial by combat stopped in English and colonial law before Jamestown was founded. American law after the revolution never recognized the right.
/** The great (perhaps greatest ever) English lawyer William Blackstone clearly indicated that in English law if you killed someone in a duel, not only were you guilty of murder, but so was your second, and so was the second of the man you killed, stating in his 1765 Commentaries on the Laws of England: "...in the case of deliberate duelling, where both parties meet avowedly with an intent to murder; thinking it their duty, as gentlemen, and claiming it as their right, to wanton with their own lives and those of their fellow creatures; without any warrant or authority from any power either divine or human, but in direct contradiction to the laws both of God and man; and therefore the law has justly fixed the crime and punishment of murder, on them, and on their seconds also." That's how harsh English law was on the practice.
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When people moved west from the East Coast, so long as they remained within the bounds jurisdiction of British (or later, American) law—within the states, the territories, colonies or other controlled lands—they remained subject to their British common law or American law, both of which criminalized dueling.
Sure, where the law was difficult to enforce, sometimes it wasn't (that was true with laws against dueling as well as every other law, murder and theft included, and I assume you don't extol the virtues of the proud Western tradition of cattle rustling), but what changed was *not* Easterners consciously "changing" the West, what happened was the laws simply became easier to enforce as the regions were increasingly developed and prosperous. In the local population disagreed with the enforcement, they could have tried to get the law changed and dueling legalized.
If your theory were right, the territorial or state legislatures were (and still are) always free to formally legalize dueling (all they had to do was legalize it before the darned Easterners showed up). No American legislature ever did.
Come on. First, why would Hitler back down if that were the consequence? Even if he were a coward (and I have no idea if he was or not) he would accept the duel, then have you killed by his fellow larty members before the duel.
In effect, you have proven that violence and the threat of violence can sometimes be applied in ways that produce positive benefits, which I have never denied. You could just as easily posit "What if an Englishman murdered Hitler" to justify why murder is a good thing. You could also flip the argument, "What is someone had challenged Martin Luther Kind Jr. to a duel, humiliating him"?
In any event, it's a long way from “violence is sometimes good" to "therefore we should encourage more of it." Alongside the socially beneficial violence, there's also the detrimental kind , and the history of dueling is such that I do not think you can expect more of the former than you'll get of the latter. Even in the highly regulated (but legal) forms of dueling that existed in Renaissance (and later) continental Europe, dueling always seemed to produce more of the latter than the former.
It's not that dueling is a concept that was never given a fair chance. It was tried for a very long time. Then it was tried in regulated form for a long time. Then in even more regulated form. Then it was prohibited entirely.
It has an intuitive pull because we all want to fight someone from time to time, but in practice those fights do more harm than good over all. That's not my judgment, it is the judgment of history. That is only plausible way to explain nearly universal legal prohibition on duels of honor...as it certainly was not that liberals swept through every single legislature in the western world over the course of a millennium and forced their opinion on everyone. Liberals aren't that well organized.
Is a "duel" in your eyes just one guy saying, "Let's fight" and the other responding "Okay!" followed by an immediate fight. Should be notice? A chance for reflection? Witnesses? Who chooses the weapons/form of the duel? If the challenged person were to say "I choose to box you, " why would that be unacceptable?
I was implicitly using it in reference to "western culture" in general (and then in other instances, I was using it to mean modern western culture, the one where most people have rejected lethal dueling as immoral.)
For purposes of your providing a counter example, where dueling was a positive (or at least "non-negative") economic and/or social influence, though, feel free to select any culture, oriental, occidental or other.
And yet those fights were still illegal. The Old West was not exactly like it is portrayed in the movies. Shooting a man because he insulted you was murder, even in the territories. You might get away with it, but that's because the legal system is imperfect, and authorities sometimes do not enforce the law against everyone. Say a man catches his wife in bed with his best friend, and shoots him dead without warning, that is definitely *not* a "duel," and yet many a man has gotten away with just that. The Old West did not have a "gunfight a day" even in the most lawless areas, medieval Madrid did go through a period where by some estimates 5-10 young nobles were dying a day from dueling before the Counsel of Trent started threatening participants with excommunication.
Dueling was separately criminalized after that, and it wasn't exactly "the hoity-toity" who banned it, sort of...or rather it was the hoity-toity who banned it, but it was only the hoity-toity who were allowed to duel in the first place. Dueling was usually only for the aristocracy. If Joe Peasant met with Bob the Miller to duel, usually both would be in trouble with the law if caught, even in those periods when dueling was legal, because it was a privilege of the aristocracy and men-at-arms. (The rule in America was slightly different since we had no nobility, but in the U.S. it was still considered unseemly for people of different social classes to duel, and completely inappropriate for an upper class person to challenge a lower class person to a duel.)
Since typically only aristocrats were allowed to challenge people to duels anyway, it makes sense that the aristocracy would be the ones to criminalize it. Also, you should know that duels were not banned all at once. At first attempts were made to limit the "stupid duels." One of the reasons duels were considered to be for the aristocrats only was that the commoners were considered to be not sophisticated enough to use the privilege properly. That restriction aside, there were various attempts to make it illegal to duel over women unless the women consented, limit duels over trivial sums of money (Louis VII, for example, banned duels over sums of less than five sous around 1160 A.D.), and even codes that prescribed what sorts of insults were not cause enough to warrant a challenge.
You misunderstand the history. Dueling was never legal in America, not in the East, not in the west. People didn't move from the East and then criminalize it. What happened dueling was *always* illegal under English common law (even before Jamestown was settled)./* Jamestown imported English common law with them (as did the rest of British North America). English law was in fact far more strict on duelists than continental law, since in England the laws against dueling were actually strictly enforced. Even challenging another person to a duel was a crime (called "incitement")./** (In France, in contrast, even after duels were banned the king would usually liberally grant pardons to those involved, so prosecutions became increasingly rare over time.) As a result, duels were far less common in Britain than in other European nations.
------
/* Except as in the course of a criminal trial, when trial by combat was still technically allowed. That said, though it remained on the books, in actual practice trial by combat stopped in English and colonial law before Jamestown was founded. American law after the revolution never recognized the right.
/** The great (perhaps greatest ever) English lawyer William Blackstone clearly indicated that in English law if you killed someone in a duel, not only were you guilty of murder, but so was your second, and so was the second of the man you killed, stating in his 1765 Commentaries on the Laws of England: "...in the case of deliberate duelling, where both parties meet avowedly with an intent to murder; thinking it their duty, as gentlemen, and claiming it as their right, to wanton with their own lives and those of their fellow creatures; without any warrant or authority from any power either divine or human, but in direct contradiction to the laws both of God and man; and therefore the law has justly fixed the crime and punishment of murder, on them, and on their seconds also." That's how harsh English law was on the practice.
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When people moved west from the East Coast, so long as they remained within the bounds jurisdiction of British (or later, American) law—within the states, the territories, colonies or other controlled lands—they remained subject to their British common law or American law, both of which criminalized dueling.
Sure, where the law was difficult to enforce, sometimes it wasn't (that was true with laws against dueling as well as every other law, murder and theft included, and I assume you don't extol the virtues of the proud Western tradition of cattle rustling), but what changed was *not* Easterners consciously "changing" the West, what happened was the laws simply became easier to enforce as the regions were increasingly developed and prosperous. In the local population disagreed with the enforcement, they could have tried to get the law changed and dueling legalized.
If your theory were right, the territorial or state legislatures were (and still are) always free to formally legalize dueling (all they had to do was legalize it before the darned Easterners showed up). No American legislature ever did.
Come on. First, why would Hitler back down if that were the consequence? Even if he were a coward (and I have no idea if he was or not) he would accept the duel, then have you killed by his fellow larty members before the duel.
In effect, you have proven that violence and the threat of violence can sometimes be applied in ways that produce positive benefits, which I have never denied. You could just as easily posit "What if an Englishman murdered Hitler" to justify why murder is a good thing. You could also flip the argument, "What is someone had challenged Martin Luther Kind Jr. to a duel, humiliating him"?
In any event, it's a long way from “violence is sometimes good" to "therefore we should encourage more of it." Alongside the socially beneficial violence, there's also the detrimental kind , and the history of dueling is such that I do not think you can expect more of the former than you'll get of the latter. Even in the highly regulated (but legal) forms of dueling that existed in Renaissance (and later) continental Europe, dueling always seemed to produce more of the latter than the former.
It's not that dueling is a concept that was never given a fair chance. It was tried for a very long time. Then it was tried in regulated form for a long time. Then in even more regulated form. Then it was prohibited entirely.
It has an intuitive pull because we all want to fight someone from time to time, but in practice those fights do more harm than good over all. That's not my judgment, it is the judgment of history. That is only plausible way to explain nearly universal legal prohibition on duels of honor...as it certainly was not that liberals swept through every single legislature in the western world over the course of a millennium and forced their opinion on everyone. Liberals aren't that well organized.
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It is frustrating when people response to a comment without either reading it or understanding it. It is bad enough to have to read responses filled with misspelled words and bad grammar, but to have my words twisted out of shape to serve someone else’s purposes is just too much. Several days ago I wrote that I thought that dueling is an outmoded concept because there are no opinions worth fighting a duel for, I never said that there were no opinions worth fighting for, the topic we are discussing is dueling, not combat and not war. As far as fighting for our country, what does that have to do with dueling? I am proud to say that a member of my family has defended the principles and honor of this country in every war from the Civil War through Vietnam, and I had a great-uncle who was a Rough Rider with Theodore Roosevelt.
Again, the topic is dueling; therefore, I challenge both Baron Max and Buffalo Roam and anyone else who supports the concept of dueling to list just one issue they would fight a duel over, and don’t hide behind the veil of patriotism and say you would fight a duel over the Constitution, or the flag, or the honor of the United States. I want you to list a personal issue you think is worth dueling over. And by duel I mean a formal pistols-at-ten-paces affair, where you face the possibility of killing or of being killed. Just what issue do you think is so important that you would kill another man over? Any takers?
Again, the topic is dueling; therefore, I challenge both Baron Max and Buffalo Roam and anyone else who supports the concept of dueling to list just one issue they would fight a duel over, and don’t hide behind the veil of patriotism and say you would fight a duel over the Constitution, or the flag, or the honor of the United States. I want you to list a personal issue you think is worth dueling over. And by duel I mean a formal pistols-at-ten-paces affair, where you face the possibility of killing or of being killed. Just what issue do you think is so important that you would kill another man over? Any takers?
Buffalo Roam
Registered Senior Member
The Honor of My God.
The Honor of My Name.
The Honor of My Family.
The Honor of My Word.
The Honor of My Country.
Just what the hell do you think a war is? The Baron didn't realize just how much truth he spoke, War is the ultimate Duel.
The really funny thing is that we have to many people who because they have no Honor and see no reason for Honor, be it in the defense of your Name or Country, think nothing of insulting the Honor and Integrity of others, and then hide behind the supposed veneer of civilization proclaiming that You Honor isn't worth them having to back up their mouth when they use words against you. It would be interesting to see just how many of the Liberals would back up their mouth if we could call you out, it would show very quickly just how much value much of your rhetoric is worth.
Maybe the saddest part of that entire statement is the fact that you don't have enough honor, personal honor, that you think is important. And I have to admit that I've seen so much of that in the youth of today, much more than in the youth of my day.
Why are you so proud of them? You made the claim above that nothing is worth fighting for, yet here you claim to be proud of those in your family who fought in wars. You don't find that odd? From the implications of your post, it seems like you should be ashamed of them, not proud.
Baron Max
I'm trying to imagine all the men killing each other because they got flipped off in traffic, argued over a property line, argued over a loud party, argued because another man said his wife was ugly, etc.
Would these all then be honor killings?
Buffalo Roam
Registered Senior Member
No just a normal night in the Barrio.
Pandaemoni
Valued Senior Member
No, it wouldn't. If I say 1+1=2 and you challenge me to a duel because you say the answer is 7, whether I back out of the duel or lose the duel or win the duel or am struck dead by lightning before I can respond is all irrelevant. I remain right and you remain wrong no matter what the outcome.
If a woman were to state her belief that capital punishment is morally wrong, and you challenge her to a duel, that she refuses doesn't change her opinion and it doesn't render her arguments in favor of that opinion any less valid. The same is exactly as true if it were a man holding that opinion.
Dueling does not serve as "the ultimate answer" to who is correct in a particular debate. A person's willingness or unwillingness to "back up" his rhetoric with violence has nothing whatsoever to do with whether or not his or her rhetoric is substantively correct. Even a coward can be right, and a brave (or overweening) man can be wrong because those are not mutually exclusive states.
Similarly, just because you "feel strongly" about a position (strongly enough to risk your life in support of it) does not make you "more right" than the person who disagrees but refuses to fight over the issue. Strong feelings are not a measure of correctness.
All that dueling leads to is a world where only people willing to risk their lives have the right to speak. Freedom of speech only applies to them, and only so long as they can stay alive.
Historically, those mortality rates reached surprising heights. As I noted several pages ago, in the early 16th century only about 1 out of 4 Spanish noblemen older than 15 years was surviving to age 30, and dueling was far and away the leading cause of death of men in that age group. (That is what specifically prompted the papacy, through the Council of Trent, to excommunicate anyone involved in a duel—duelists, seconds, instigators and even the owner of the land on which they fought if he knew about it.) Similarly high death rates prompted similar attempts in France and elsewhere to limit the "trivial" causes of duels by law, usually without success.
I don't have a problem with voluntary combat in a very abstract sense, but I do not want, for example, someone killing the President because they do not like his Iraq policy (and if dueling were legal, he'd have to fend off at least one challenger a day, I'm sure, so would eventually be killed), nor do I like the implication that by refusing to fight, the President is proving that his policy is wrong. I personally have grave doubts about his policy, but declaring them wrong because he refuses to fight makes about as much sense as declaring them wrong because Chewbacca lives on Endor.