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Does Iran have a "Right" to Nuclear Weapons?[W:296, 650]

Does Iran have a "Right" to Nuclear Weapons?

  • Total voters
    118
Re: Does Iran have a "Right" to Nuclear Weapons?

Jack Hays said:
No. Other than shouting about nuclear weapons' immorality, how would you persuade the current nuclear weapons states to give them up?
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Nukes - I am more concerned about weaponized viruses, like that dumb ass did and if I recall correctly, in the lab with the bird flu. Bit of playing with genetic code, inserting some, deleting others, bango, a high mortality, airborne virus.
Easier to make, easier to hide, easier to drop off in various countries.
 
Re: Does Iran have a "Right" to Nuclear Weapons?

Jack Hays said:
Sorry, but your personal convictions, no matter how sincere, have no effect on the rights of nations.
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Neither do your personal convictions, no matter how sincere, show that these rights actually exist.
 
Re: Does Iran have a "Right" to Nuclear Weapons?

JANFU said:
Nukes - I am more concerned about weaponized viruses, like that dumb ass did and if I recall correctly, in the lab with the bird flu. Bit of playing with genetic code, inserting some, deleting others, bango, a high mortality, airborne virus.
Easier to make, easier to hide, easier to drop off in various countries.
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Certainly a terrible threat, but I'm not sure it will provoke serious counter efforts until someone lets the genie out of the bottle. Human nature is that we learn best by experience.
 
Re: Does Iran have a "Right" to Nuclear Weapons?

Cephus said:
Neither do your personal convictions, no matter how sincere, show that these rights actually exist.
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The rights of nations are enshrined in treaties and international law.
 
Re: Does Iran have a "Right" to Nuclear Weapons?

Jack Hays said:
The rights of nations are enshrined in treaties and international law.
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Which are only true so long as those treaties and laws stand. They're not rights, they're rules come up with by nations. That doesn't make them correct.
 
Re: Does Iran have a "Right" to Nuclear Weapons?

Cephus said:
Which are only true so long as those treaties and laws stand. They're not rights, they're rules come up with by nations. That doesn't make them correct.
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Indeed

Treaties are not forever and nations can withdraw from the treaty with the same ease with which they ratified it in the past
 
Re: Does Iran have a "Right" to Nuclear Weapons?

Cephus said:
Which are only true so long as those treaties and laws stand. They're not rights, they're rules come up with by nations. That doesn't make them correct.
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No rights are ever "correct." All rights are the product of agreements among men. The rights of nations under international law have the same pedigree as individual rights.
 
Re: Does Iran have a "Right" to Nuclear Weapons?

Jack Hays said:
START was in both sides' interest and was achieved via hard bargaining.
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Yes it was. Why not move forward with it even more? You do know Gorby wanted to get rid of nuclear weapons completely?
 
Re: Does Iran have a "Right" to Nuclear Weapons?

TheDemSocialist said:
Yes it was. Why not move forward with it even more? You do know Gorby wanted to get rid of nuclear weapons completely?
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It was actually Reagan who proposed that. Gorbachev balked.
 
Re: Does Iran have a "Right" to Nuclear Weapons?

Robert in Ohio said:
Indeed

Treaties are not forever and nations can withdraw from the treaty with the same ease with which they ratified it in the past
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Except in this case, where nations cannot just withdraw from the UN and be able to do their own thing, the UN gets to force them to do what the UN wants them to do, just because the UN has power. Apparently, this is fine with some people.
 
Re: Does Iran have a "Right" to Nuclear Weapons?

Jack Hays said:
No rights are ever "correct." All rights are the product of agreements among men. The rights of nations under international law have the same pedigree as individual rights.
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Yet there are a lot of people, particularly libertarians, who treat rights as if they are magical, mystical things that exist out there in the ether and apply whether anyone wants them to or not.
 
Re: Does Iran have a "Right" to Nuclear Weapons?

Cephus said:
Except in this case, where nations cannot just withdraw from the UN and be able to do their own thing, the UN gets to force them to do what the UN wants them to do, just because the UN has power. Apparently, this is fine with some people.
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Why couldn't a nation withdraw from the United Nations, or withdraw its ratification of the NPT - there are UN members who have not signed the NPT (India, Israel, Pakistan, South Sudan) three of which have nuclear weapons

You make UN membership sound like involuntary servitude, which it is not
 
Re: Does Iran have a "Right" to Nuclear Weapons?

Robert in Ohio said:
Why couldn't a nation withdraw from the United Nations, or withdraw its ratification of the NPT - there are UN members who have not signed the NPT (India, Israel, Pakistan, South Sudan) three of which have nuclear weapons

You make UN membership sound like involuntary servitude, which it is not
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You didn't read everything that I wrote. I said withdraw from the UN and do their own thing. Clearly, even if Iran left the UN, the UN would fight them having access to nuclear weapons. Whether they belong or not, they are under the de facto control of the UN, for things which the UN considers important (or more realistically, what the U.S. pushes the UN to do). Belonging to the UN isn't involuntary servitude, being a nation that the UN or U.S. doesn't like is.
 
Re: Does Iran have a "Right" to Nuclear Weapons?

Cephus said:
You didn't read everything that I wrote. I said withdraw from the UN and do their own thing. Clearly, even if Iran left the UN, the UN would fight them having access to nuclear weapons. Whether they belong or not, they are under the de facto control of the UN, for things which the UN considers important (or more realistically, what the U.S. pushes the UN to do). Belonging to the UN isn't involuntary servitude, being a nation that the UN or U.S. doesn't like is.
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US influence at the UN is surprisingly limited.
 
Re: Does Iran have a "Right" to Nuclear Weapons?

Cephus said:
Except in this case, where nations cannot just withdraw from the UN and be able to do their own thing, the UN gets to force them to do what the UN wants them to do, just because the UN has power. Apparently, this is fine with some people.
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Greetings, Cephus. :2wave:

Thankfully this does not apply to us, because our Constitution and Bill of Rights take precedence - so far.
 
Re: Does Iran have a "Right" to Nuclear Weapons?

polgara said:
Greetings, Cephus. :2wave:

Thankfully this does not apply to us, because our Constitution and Bill of Rights take precedence - so far.
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We just think that *OUR* Constitution and *OUR* Bill of Rights applies everywhere. That's incorrect.
 
Re: Does Iran have a "Right" to Nuclear Weapons?

Cephus said:
We just think that *OUR* Constitution and *OUR* Bill of Rights applies everywhere. That's incorrect.
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Do they not protect us from having others tell us how to run our Country? I always thought they did. :confused:
 
Re: Does Iran have a "Right" to Nuclear Weapons?

polgara said:
Do they not protect us from having others tell us how to run our Country? I always thought they did. :confused:
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Yet we don't respect the laws and Constitutions of other countries, we think we get to tell them how to run theirs. There are far too many people in this country, indeed on this very forum, who are convinced that everyone, everywhere has all the rights that we enjoy in the U.S. They are wrong.
 
Re: Does Iran have a "Right" to Nuclear Weapons?

polgara said:
Greetings, Cephus. :2wave:

Thankfully this does not apply to us, because our Constitution and Bill of Rights take precedence - so far.
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This is true. The belligerent that can, needn't concern itself with IL, or the UN if it decides that it's "interests" (nebulous as that is) supersede the former, and if it has the military, economic and political will, it can dismiss both.
 
Re: Does Iran have a "Right" to Nuclear Weapons?

FreedomFromAll said:
Does Israel really need them to start?
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Yes. In order to be legitimately accused of building nuclear weapons, they must be building nuclear weapons. If you buy into the late argument of pre-emptive war because somebody may do something someday, you have a precarious perch.
 
Re: Does Iran have a "Right" to Nuclear Weapons?

FreedomFromAll said:
Does Israel really need them to start?
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No. If you are armed, and a person who has threatened to kill you walks out in front of you, loading shells into his shotgun, you don't wait until he has leveled it at your chest to shoot him.
 
Re: Does Iran have a "Right" to Nuclear Weapons?

polgara said:
Do they not protect us from having others tell us how to run our Country? I always thought they did. :confused:
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Hi Polgara. No, that's fantastic, and your "like" surprises me. Our constitution and our bill of rights does not insulate us from external forces. The BOR you should know is designed to protect American citizens civil liberties, and pointedly from our own government. And, a persons "rights", or a groups, or a states or a countries rights are whatever they can force. That's it, nothing more. Something or someone will always be challenging them. Even on the heels of our countries founding, several framers, for sometime to come, reiterated that you have what's been delivered to you so long as you can hold on to it. And, without due diligence, perseverance, and in the words of at least one, an occasional revolution, you won't retain them. Other countries don't give a damn about the American constitution, or the people's Bill,of Rights, if they perceive it to conflict with their own.
 
Re: Does Iran have a "Right" to Nuclear Weapons?

Jack Hays said:
In the abstract and absolute sense I'll concede your point. But those conditions rarely apply. In the real world the value of a combatant's cause and the outcome of the war are the primary determinants of what is classed as an atrocity.
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They always apply. Not have the moral core to abide by your moral convictions is not the same as them not applying. And no, the outcome of a war is not dependent on committing atrocities. We did not have to bomb Dresden to win, we did not have to drop two nukes to win, we did not have to torture to win, it's a false premise that because something happened that we had no choice but to do it. There are choices.
 
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