“It’s a nonsensical question. When you resort to revolution, you exist in a state of nature. What are you going to do? Go to a court run by the government you seek to overthrow and sue for your right to overthrow them? It’s a complete absurdity. Once the fighting starts, it’s a contest of power and prowess, not rights and law.”
The question is fine, your analysis is what’s nonsensical. Not that you can’t believe in Might Makes Right or be a nihilist. But the question is whether we have natural rights, and if we do it wouldn’t make any difference whether they went unfulfilled because we lost a clash of arms. For that would only mean we lost, not that we were wrong.
Again, you can say Might Makes Right, but that wouldn’t make the question (of whether we have the right to revolution) absurd. You’d just be answering it in the negative.
“As for the Declaration of Independence, it asserts that when any FORM of government becomes detrimental, it can be abolished and replaced with a new FORM”
You insist rather emphatically on the significance of “form.” Why?
No, actually, I'm not answering in the negative.
You insist rather emphatically on the significance of “form.” Why?
Because that's what it says:
That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.