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This topic brings to mind one of my favorites that has come up on more than a few occasions...

The US isn't a democracy, it's a representative Republic.

http://thefederalistpapers.org...

It has been observed that a pure democracy if it were practicable would be the most perfect government. Experience has proved that no position is more false than this. The ancient democracies in which the people themselves deliberated never possessed one good feature of government. Their very character was tyranny; their figure deformity. â" Speech in New York, urging ratification of the U.S. Constitution (1788-06-21)

I'm not even American, and even I know that.

You vote for a President and the President appoints people like Pai. Now, admittedly you can make a case that appointing bureaucrats who can then make rules on the fly is something that people like Hamilton may well have had some issues with. However he definitely wasn't a fan of direct democracy, Classical Athens style.

A search for "CNN changes headline" produces nearly half a million results, mostly about that story. But since that's apparently beyond you:

CNN Changes Headline After Antifa Complains

CNN Changes Headline After Claiming Antifa Uses Violence

Seriously? CNN Changes Headline On Story About Antifa Because They Didn't Like Being Called Violent

UNBELIEVABLE: CNN CHANGES HEADLINE AFTER ANTIFA DEMANDS IT

CNN Changes Its Headline That Antifa Desires ‘Peace Through Violence’ After Antifa Objects

CNN Changes Headline after Antifa Complains

CNN Changes “Peace Through Violence” Headline After Antifa Objects

CNN article calls Antifa violent, but CHANGES headline when they WHINE about it

Read more: http://therightscoop.com/cnn-a...

This wasn't exactly an obscure story.

You can't have a free society without freedom of religion. People have a right to believe in fairy tails and talk and sing to an imaginary creature, however silly and pointless that may sound to people who are not religious.

I believe they were providing an indirect quote of Churchill in answer to the poster that asked what Churchill would say:
(from http://thefederalistpapers.org... )
Churchill: [...]"The fact that in Mohammedan law every woman must belong to some man as his absolute property—either as a child, a wife, or a concubine—must delay the final extinction of slavery until the faith of Islam has ceased to be a great power among men."[...]

While I agree that freedom of belief and religion are essential to a free society, I do not know how the practice of a religion that mandates ownership of other adult humans can be tolerated within such a society.

You would think that if this was and is the case, that it would have received more mention in discussions about Islam.

What would Churchill say about this turn of events.

Winston did have this to say about what his country finds itself up against:
http://thefederalistpapers.org...

as a source of reliable news, and that probably applies to the socials as well, for obvious reasons, if you aren't a Leftist.

The so-called MNM was in the tank for Hillary during this election cycle: https://wikileaks.org/podesta-...
The media dropped all appearances of journalistic standards and went ballistic in their attacks against Republican candidates, predicting that the final winner, Trump, had no chance of being elected. They started believing their own propaganda and it got echoed back and forth among the various news outlets. Hillary had a tough time filling a high school gymnasium and photos of her rallies were always up front and closely cropped, deliberately. Here is an example of but one of many:
http://thefederalistpapers.org...

Facebook, Twitter, Google and YouTube combined forces to censor "hate" speech on their sites. What they deemed hate speech became patently clear as we approached November 8th. Any posts against Hillary were shadow-baned, and if that didn't force repentance the account was suspended. If the account holder didn't conform to Leftist norms then the account was canceled. Google and Twitter did the same. Google CEO was even on Hillary's campaign team.
Here is a screen captures of an experiment testing Twitter's bias:
http://www.informationliberati...
Guess who got banned.
Here is a similar experiment testing Facebook's bias:
https://www.breakingisraelnews...

Google was just as evil. When Google first set up YouTube they encouraged EVERYONE to create content and post it. They set up provisions for sharing ad revenue. Some YT posters became so successful they quit their jobs and became full time content creators for YouTube. Some of the content was political in nature. You guessed it. Videos which were not favorable to Hillary, or were favorable to Trump got demonetized, and sometimes the account was canceled, throwing the content creator out of a job. Those videos continued to make ad revenues but Google took it all. And they mock Trump's "You're Fired!", or his defunct "university". I suspect that Google has stolen more money from demonetized videos than Trump ever made from his short-lived university. Pure thievery.

During the debate Hillary was "horrified" that Trump would not say that he would accept the outcome of the election, so confident she was of her own election. She when on to describe his attitude as anti-democratic and UN-American. Then she lost the electoral count. Now, according to her own words, SHE is being anti-democratic and UN-American. She joined Jill Stein in the recount, but only in the states she had a narrow loss, not the states she narrowly won, probably fearing the truth of the Veritas video uncovering paid Democrat operatives bragging that they've been stuffing ballot boxes for "50 years" and they "won't **** stop now". Recounting a Chicago-style count would probably be hazardous to her popular vote totals. Here are Hillary's close counts:
Nevada by only 27K votes, Colorado by 75K, Minnesota by 44K and New Hampshire by only 3,000 votes.

So, despite the fact that both wings of the Democrat party ( the Far-Left Bernie and the Far-Left Hillary, they argued over who was more "progressive" and I call it a tie), the leadership of the Republican Party and many of its members and ALL of the Alt-Left Media, as listed in Podesta's email, were against Trump he still won by 37 electoral votes, a margin Hillary would have gladly accepted. The IRS's throttling of 501c applications, which doomed Conservative PACs in the last two elections wasn't effective in stopping Trump because he funded his campaign himself, and he spent a fraction of

Huh?

The Federalist Papers

Also recommended: The Anti-Federalist Papers

Perhaps you're thinking of the Articles of Confederation?

Huh?

The Federalist Papers

Also recommended: The Anti-Federalist Papers

Perhaps you're thinking of the Articles of Confederation?

No. The Second Amendment was proposed, talked about, debated, and eventually ratified by people who EXACTLY considered it to be about protecting the individual right to keep and bear arms. There are mountains of letters, transcripts, and explicit explanations from those who created the Bill of Rights to help you understand their thinking about this, as well as other familiar ones (like the freedom to speak, assemble, etc).

Was the article wrong when it said "From 1888, when law review articles first were indexed, through 1959, every single one on the Second Amendment concluded it did not guarantee an individual right to a gun. The first to argue otherwise, written by a William and Mary law student named Stuart R. Hays, appeared in 1960."

Apples & oranges.

"Law review articles" =/= "...mountains of letters, transcripts, and explicit explanations from those who created the Bill of Rights..."

If you have an open mind, here's a good place to start regarding how those who created the US Constitution regarded the right of private citizens to own firearms:

http://thefederalistpapers.org...

If you want horrifying levels of violence, death, and chaos in the US, just try banning/heavily-restricting/criminalizing most individual, private gun ownership/possession. It will make the violence from 'Prohibition' and the 'War on (some) Drugs' combined look like elementary school playground spats.

There are nearly enough guns in civilian hands currently to arm every man, woman, and child in the US. Even if everyone was on-board and willingly turned in firearms, it would still be decades before significantly more than half were turned in just due to the sheer numbers involved and the size of the nation, so you'll have some areas gun-free and some not for decades, and criminals will simply go to the places where victims are unarmed.

Strat

It's easy to ignore the first half of the sentence and just pay attention to the second, but that's disingenuous.

What's disingenuous is failing to acknowledge that in the 16th Century, "well-regulated" was synonymous with "well-trained." If you want to "regulate" guns by, for example, instituting marksmanship training as part of the public school curriculum, that'd be fine with me!

Furthermore, you have to take it in the context of the times in which it was written.

The context of the times was that the Second Amendment was written by a bunch of terrorists* who had just finished violently overthrowing their government.

(* If the revolution were happening today, that's certainly the term King George would be throwing around -- whether it accurately described the revolutionaries' tactics or not.)

I know it's easy to have a romantic view of the Founding Fathers that they somehow encoded into the Constitution the seeds of the government's demise if it became too "tyrannical," but it's just not there in the text of the Second Amendment.

The Constitution, including the Bill of Rights, is a remarkably terse document (as opposed to some of the later Amendments, which became more verbose). Therefore, I certainly agree with you that it must be understood in context with the Federalist Papers and other writings of the Framers! But from that context, it is abundantly clear that they envisioned the militia as a check against the power of the State (and against the threat to freedom posed by a professional standing army in particular).

Jefferson has been quoted to death, so I'll cite others instead. Here's Washington's thought on the subject:

"At a time, when our lordly masters in Great Britain will be satisfied with nothing less than the deprivation of American freedom, it seems highly necessary that something should be done to avert the stroke, and maintain the liberty, which we have derived from our ancestors. But the manner of doing it, to answer the purpose effectually, is the point in question. That no man should scruple, or hesitate a moment, to use arms in defence of so valuable a blessing, on which all the good and evil of life depends, is clearly my opinion."

If that's not advocating for the use of arms as a defense against (your own) tyrannical government, what is it?

Patrick Henry is even more explicit:

"O sir, we should have fine times, indeed, if, to punish tyrants, it were only sufficient to assemble the people! Your arms, wherewith you could defend yourselves, are gone; and you have no longer an aristocratical, no longer a democratical spirit. Did you ever read of any revolution in a nation, brought about by the punishment of those in power, inflicted by those who had no power at all?"

And here's Alexander Hamilton, writing in Federalist #28:

"If the representatives of the people betray their constituents, there is then no resource left but in the exertion of that original right of self-defense which is paramount to all positive forms of government..."

Elbridge Gerry is a relatively obscure figure, but he didn't mince words:

"What, sir, is the use of a militia? It is to prevent the establishment of a standing army, the bane of liberty. Whenever governments mean to invade the rights and liberties of the people, they always attempt to destroy the militia, in order to raise an army upon their ruins."

Finally, here's George Mason, who helped write the Second Amendment itself:

"I ask, Sir, what is the militia? It is the whole people. To disarm the people is the best and most effectual way to enslave them."

I could keep going, but that should be more than enough evidence to prove my point to all but the densest (or most disingenuous) debater.

BTW I think you're full of it. https://www.thefederalistpaper...

The Continental Army was disbanded after the Revolution, and when the next major threat came up (Shay's Rebellion), Washington raised the militia. The standing Army was not small. It did not exist. It was not supposed to exist, which is why there's a two-year limit for military appropriations.

http://teachinghistory.org/his...
http://www.shsu.edu/~his_ncp/S...
http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18t...

Madison, Jefferson, Adams, Webster, and Hamilton all argued that standing armies were a threat to liberty. Even Franklin got in on the act. Whatever the Founders disagreed about, they were all pretty much behind this idea.

âoeThat a well-regulated militia, composed of the body of the people, trained to arms, is the proper, natural and safe defense of a free state; that standing armies, in time of peace, should be avoided as dangerous to liberty; and that, in all cases, the military should be under strict subordination to, and governed by, the civil power.â â" Virginia Declaration of Rights, June 12, 1776

You can have your own principles, but not your own facts, and the facts are against you: the Founders were entirely against having a standing army.

I had to laugh at that delegate (Curly Haugland, a delegate from North Dakota) when he said "The rules are still designed to have a political party choose its nominee at a convention. That’s just the way it is. I can’t help it. Don’t hate me because I love the rules.". Evidently he is a 1%'er.

I am not a Republican.

As for Bernie and the Min wage here is what I think of $15 min wage .... http://www.thefederalistpapers...

The problem with Bernie, on Economics is that he is a stupid Socialist, and big government (Min Wage is big government) is the solution to the problems created by big government.

As for the Legal Limbo of ILLEGAL aliens, I have no sympathy. Mind you, if I was in south America, I would come here illegally too! I don't blame them, but I have no sympathy either.

And Military is actually one reason for the Government. Mind you, I oppose getting involved in other country's civil wars and the "Nation Building" that rapes the taxpayers to feed the military industrial complex. I am a Government minimalist. But I also realize that when the Federal Government steals from the social security trust fund, to fund all the other social programs liberals want, something is seriously wrong.

And Bernie, has promised more taxes (all taxes are regressive) and more social spending to fix all the problems caused by taxes and social spending! YAY!

A better question may be why they haven't come down harder on terrorist activities on Twitter

This is why. The Saudis have a Sunni supremacist agenda and they will use any leverage they have to promote it.

There are already numerous allegations of Twitter censoring and unverifying the political right or pro-gamergate folks such as Milo Yiannopoulos. Trump is actually a big attention grabber and he is capturing lots of media attention, so censoring him would hurt Twitter more.

A better question may be why they haven't come down harder on terrorist activities on Twitter

The Founders appear to have addressed this issue explicitly.

http://www.thefederalistpapers...

http://kieranhealy.org/blog/ar...

The founding fathers were wrong when they thought their descendents wouldn't turn into absolute morons within three centuries.

Yes they were. They thought it would only take about 20.

I go further and affirm that bills of rights, in the sense and to the extent in which they are contended for, are not only unnecessary in the proposed Constitution but would even be dangerous. They would contain various exceptions to powers which are not granted; and, on this very account, would afford a colorable pretext to claim more than were granted. For why declare that things shall not be done which there is no power to do? Why, for instance, should it be said that the liberty of the press shall not be restrained, when no power is given by which restrictions may be imposed?

- Alexander Hamilton, Federalist Paper #84

Or even the Declaration of Independence:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. - That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed...

Bonus points for reading political philosophy.

It is a perversion of terms to say that a charter gives rights. It operates by a contrary effect - that of taking rights away. Rights are inherently in all the inhabitants; but charters, by annulling those rights, in the majority, leave the right, by exclusion, in the hands of a few.

-Thomas Paine