You really need to expand your political horizons. Those false dichotomies are just... sad. There is an entire world beyond the line between state absolutism and libertarian individualism. But until you can conceive of it, you are incapable of comprehending my position.

There is a reason the age of dueling ended when the enlightenment and humanism became something our societies adopted as a whole instead of those things being just the pursuit of some airy intellectuals. And it is that, with the rise of democracy, people became aware that they have the right, but also the duty to shape the society we live in to be better. This - for me - is the central point of civilization, to actively construct and shape a society that grows continually more moral and drives us to listen to “the better angels of our nature” to say it in Lincoln’s words, instead of listening to our baser wants.

This development is the cause of the biggest extinction event in Earth's history, the colonization and genocide of tens of millions of people, and the incoming collapse of human population due to apocalyptic climate change. It has criminalized, sterilized, and slaughtered queer people for being degenerate; it has massacred barbarian indigenous populations; it has enslaved, criminalized, and exploited racialized minorities for needing a firm guiding hand; and it has beaten, murdered, and systematically disenfranchised working class people because they don't understand.

These are not the unfortunate mistakes of the rich and powerful who have a sadly mistaken view of what it means to be civilized. Civilization has always been a means to justify violent subjugation of the working class to those working class people who are reluctantly brought on board as "middle class" because if they sided with other workers the rich would be in danger.

"We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal", quoth the slave owners to white workers in order to get the white workers to help them avoid taxation on their slave plantations.

It is no accident that the moral progress of civilization goes in lockstep with the power of workers. Decolonization happened when the colonies could produce their own revolutionary militias. Feminism happened as abundant machines made muscle strength obsolete. Labor rights increased with ease of communication between laborers across wide regions so they could organize strikes. And now with automation the power of workers is receding, and therefore the privileges are getting rescinded.

When a farmer stops two roosters from fighting and puts them in separate pens, is that because the farmer is so civilized that he can't stand violence being done to animals? Or is it because the farmer wants the roosters to be in good condition so he can exploit them for greater profit?

Hint: how does the farmer feel about the butcher that slaughters his hens?

“People can be peer pressured into both lethal dueling and sex, therefore they’re equivalent” is not a valid argument.

That's not what I'm saying. what I'm saying is that the possibility of peer pressure is not a valid argument for banning it.

That it should be legal is the null hypothesis, which must be overturned by arguments that demonstrate that criminalizing it makes society better before we can determine that its illegality is just.

Again, lethal dueling and suicide are not equivalent. Someone deciding for themselves that they’re going to end their own life…if it’s something they’ve thought about and planned (as opposed to an impulsive attemps, which are 95% of actual suicides), there’s no realistic way to stop it.

If two people decide to duel each other in private in a place of their own choosing, why would there be any more chance of stopping them?

And even if you're talking about punishing people afterward, so many murders go unsolved, imagine how hard it gets if the person who dies fully cooperates with preparing an alibi and a means of disposal and removing any real evidence.

Dueling involves killing someone else

With their consent. Do you oppose euthanasia?

, my man.

Incorrect.