Perhaps some of you would like to read through this. It's an extensive essay on self defense, specifically against terrorists. I've done one reading myself but will need to go back through it again (and most likely a few more times afterward). The entire essay is here. I've pasted portions below:


this essay asserts the right of an individual to defend himself personally against islamic terror without government assistance or approval, within the context of the seminal political thought of john locke, the great english proponent of the rights of natural law inhering in all men.--

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a lot of discussion about laws of nature and natural law seems a bit removed from the reality of things, but any discussion about homicide and rape and self defense, and we begin to cut pretty close to the bone about what locke is talking about when he speaks of natural law. we all think it pretty elemental that we have a right to preserve ourselves, above all else, and that such right does not depend upon or is not given to us by government, but precedes government. this is actually a crux of theories on “natural law.” and, i might add as a precursor to where i am going in all of this, when the attack is upon the very fabric of our community, discussion of the law of nature takes on a more pressing exigency.

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this discussion, quite frankly, is to bring you to the mindset of understanding that in some situations there simply is neither time nor opportunity to resort to the magistrate, so that one must act to preserve one’s self, just precisely as though one were in a state of nature, to exert one’s right under natural law. it is not a silly concept, natural law, at 3.00 in the morning when approached by a knife wielding assailant in your own bedroom: society, and the magistrate, will avail you little in those circumstances.

. . . .

blackstone conceived himself as a person who lived under the terms of a social compact, a government and constitution, which had moved beyond the state of nature. as blackstone puts in so deliciously in the passage from the commentaries set forth above, the law of england is “to careful of the lives of its citizens” to allow them to prevent crime amongst themselves by the use of the mechanism of the death of their fellow citizens. in short, the right of the person in a state of nature as described by locke to kill his aggressors is abridged in the england that has become blackstone’s england through the compact and the administrations of english law, … , except, in those situations in which society’s punishment of the transgressor is death. then, says blackstone, the individual retains the right to be his own magistrate which he has ceded to government when he enters the social compact.

. . . .

locke clearly and correctly postulates that before man ceded his rights held in nature to the sovereign in return for the sovereign's protection and administration of the law that each man held the power of a sovereign to protect the community from those who would murder. this is only logical, in that in the theory advanced by locke, the sovereign holds no more power than is granted to him by his subjects in the compact creating government and succeeding to the state of nature.

each person in western society, upon whom jihad has been declared and is being waged, has the right inhering in him to defend himself and his fellows from the war declared upon him, and that he holds this right as a residuum of power, to use blackstone's phrase, from his rights held precedent to the creation of government. it seems to me that when the sovereign fails to protect a citizen or citizens, that it has then breached the contract coeval with the creation of government, and that each of us may assert those rights held in nature, and that each of us may protect ourselves and our brethren against those who have declared war and are pursuing war against us.

. . . .

the forbearance of each person to exercise direct retribution and revenge and punishment even unto death as postulated by locke in the state of nature as against the other who might transgress upon him, finds its premise in the belief of each that even his transgressor has signed into the compact forming limited government, e.g., that even the transgressor believes in the authority or majesty or the legitimacy of the magistrate to levy judgment and penalty against him, and in the transgressor’s decision to submit to this.

the terrorist and terrorism destroy this assumption: this is the first thing they annihilate. the terrorist and terrorism, indeed, repudiate the even the idea of the entry into such a compact, attempt to interrupt and cripple the implementation of the systems of law and procedure which are the structure of the compact, and act to bring death and destruction unto those who people and populate the system, and those who are its magistrates. they deny the efficacy and existence of the compact, and seek to destroy its physical manifestations, and seek to destroy the intellectual and emotional and psychological adherence to it on the part of its members.

put simply, the jihadi terrorist seeks to destroy the very fabric of the compact, seeks to undermine the basic assumptions which underlie and support it.

put even simpler, the terrorist and terrorism lives outside the compact.

they are not deserving of the protection of the bargains and agreements between the members of the compact who adhere to its terms.

in the simplest terms possible, the jihadi terrorist lives in a state of nature as between himself and those against who he transgresses.

each of us, against whom the jihad has declared war, is subject to the reprisal and action that each has in a state of nature as against each who transgresses against us.

they have declared war on each of us, and each of us, acting alone and as a duly constituted natural magistrate, has the right to kill those who wage war against us, outside of the boundaries, definitions and agreements which comprise the social compact between civilized men.

in addition, we have the problem of the magistrate who will not act to protect us from this menace, either from fear, or ignorance or connivance with those who make war upon us. such a magistrate has breached his compact, or his agreement with us, and, by so doing, stands outside the compact’s agreement. with that magistrate, who will not pay us the duty of protection owed us by our allegiance, we stand in a state of nature.

it might be asked, how this right is asserted.

just as the content of the great charter, the magna carta, was determined by the sword held in hand by each person who will stand for his liberty.