So, those who organized the American Revolution were only lying about their true beliefs? the Declaration of Independence is a clever forgery designed to hide their true intentions? What the hell are you talking about?
And, yes, I'll reiterate my point about gays appealing to the courts that their "rights" were being violated. The government had already issued its opinion about gay marriage in the form of a federal law. Many people have been killed by governments while protesting that their rights are being violated. i guess you are correct, as long as a government employee does the killing and someone in his chain of command told him to do it, then it was okay to do it,
Yes, i fully believe you are a statist and socialist (communist). An all-powerful government fully requires people to believe that they have only the rights that the government wants them to have. That way, they can all be good little sheep and enjoy the boots on their throats. If you ever get your dream all-powerful no restraints government, I hope it embodies every ideal you have because it would suck for you to get your dreamed for government only for it to outlaw talking to your neighbor about what the government might not be doing right because, you know, those in charge decided you didn't have that right.
According to your logic, if any President could convince enough of the military to back him, he could declare himself dictator for life and do away with elections and you would happily sit and enjoy being ruled by a dictator, regardless of how you were treated by his regime because, you know, you have absolutely no rights if he says so. What a miserable world-view to have.
No, i was citing examples of how the attitude that the Constitution only applies to things that existed at the time the Constitution was written. Many on the left like to claim that the 2nd amendment was only meant to cover muskets because that is what existed back then. Both sides have been guilty of using the logic to sidestep constitutional issues around listening to phone conversations (in the beginning of phone conversations) and then the phone and snail mail logic didn't apply to email. An the logic about papers in your house or in a safe-deposit box don't apply to storing an electronic document on somebody else's server.
I was hoping the last paragraph (especially the way off remark about none of them understanding any science) was clue enough about how I would answer my own question.
Personally, I believe that the US Constitution lays out broad principles that are supposed to guide us and that it may at times give some specific examples. For instance, the 3rd amendment discusses the quartering of troops in homes but i think the principle properly applied today would also include motor homes and travel trailers.
On the other hand, simply declaring it as outdated, inconvenient and to be ignored is also disrespecting it.However, we tend to call people who frequently do that "great constitutional scholars" and "professors of law specializing in constitutional law" and then elect them to high office and appoint them to the Supreme Court. Basically, we (society as a whole) have decided respecting the Constitution is for suckers and we need to get ours before he gets his.
Please educate yourself on exactly why the Bill of Rights was added. To put it succinctly, it was because many (most?) of the Founding Fathers were afraid of assholes like you who would claim that the government was all powerful. How right they were. And how right Samuel Clemens was with his commentary about fools and there mouths.
I guess it all depends on whether you subscribe to the notion that the US Constitution only applies to means and methods in existence as of its writing, doesn't it?
Papers and effects means only physical things in your possession or in transit to a second party. They don't include magnetic, optical or silicon storage media. Free speech means distributing hand printed pamphlets and shouting on the streets. It certainly doesn't include TV and radio ads or moving pictures or internet communications. Interstate travel means walking or on horseback or horse-drawn wagon. It certainly does not mean cars, motorcycles and air travel. Arms means muskets. It certainly doesn't mean modern handguns and semi-automatic rifles.
No sir, Those men who fought King George and wrote the US Constitution were such imbeciles they could never have foreseen technological changes so they most certainly never intended their writings to be used outside of what they had. I mean none of them knew anything of science. They all must have certainly believed that men had always been making transoceanic voyages in sailing ships and fighting with muskets and knives made of steel and printed pamphlets on printing presses. Certainly none of them could possibly have known that those things were relatively modern inventions.
Isn't the ability to actually look around and notice that MVAs are actually a fairly rare occurrence wonderful? Isn't it awesome that such a seemingly well-phrased piece of "common sense" so easy to prove as a horribly inaccurate depiction of the real world?
And that attitude is exactly opposite of the whole movement that created the climate that allowed the American Revolution to take place. The men who led that revolution only did so because they held the view that their rights did not come from those with the guns (King George) but that they existed because we are human. Their words were that our rights were granted to us by our creator but far too many get hung up on whether there is a God or not and the phrase loses meaning to them. All such people have to do is substitute "random chance" or "nature" or "evolution" in place of Creator (as that fits their notion of Creator) and the meaning of the phrase does not change. We have rights because we exist. That men trample our rights does not diminish the fact that we have them.
According to your argument, gays fighting for their "right" to be marry was nonsensical and invalid because the "men with guns" had already said they didn't and the only valid way to gain that right was to gain it through the ballot; either by electing representatives who would alter the law or by direct ballot initiatives.
Likewise, your logic says that women do not have an unrestricted right to abortion in the US because the Supreme Court had no authority to deem the laws unconstitutional with Roe v. Wade as the Supreme Court controls no guns.
An example closer to home would be that if your neighbor can outgun you, then he gets any of your possessions he wants because he has the guns,
Just admit that your dreams of anarchy are bogus and join society already.
Not really, the 2nd amendment only reaffirmed that we have "the right to keep and bear arms." It has always been understood, even as the Founding Fathers wrote the Constitution and its first 10 amendments, that munitions and arms were not the same thing. The Founding Fathers did hold separate views between man portable arms and munitions such as cannon.
Whether encryption should be classed as a munition and regulatable (incorect, IMO) or as a means of communication and not regulatable (correct, IMO) is orthogonal to the argument of munitions vs arms and which is regulatable.
And the 9th and 10th reminding them that if it isn't explicitly given to the Feds or required of the Feds, they can't do it.
Is anyone still confused as to how requiring all citizens to purchase financial documents from a few government blessed entities can lead to the loss of all manner of rights? If so, start getting educated now before you lose anymore.
Well, restricting rights based on having misused them is actually quite commonplace in civilized and free societies. Assaulting someone is exercising a right to control the actions of all your bodily parts. Murdering someone with a gun is exercising your right to "keep and bear arms". Killing someone while driving drunk is exercising your right to drink and to "move about the country" (as a certain airline likes to phrase it). However, most societies rightly recognize that those are misuses of the mentioned rights and restrict the freedom of such offenders. Generally (in the US), we first restrict their freedom of movement and assembly. Then we continue to restrict their freedom "to keep and bear arms." Most European countries are no different in this regard.
Just because it gets restricted for having misused it, does not automatically mean it was never a right in the first place. It just means that the bar for restricting that right has been exceeded. Some societies set the bars at different heights than others.
Oh my, I replied, facetiously, towards the top of this thread about people believing that the US Constitution only applies to methods and means in existence at the time it was written. I included enough other words that I hope my intent to ridicule such beliefs was evident.
I'm not sure this AC had that same intent. It appears others disagree the the AC as well.
It really is more a case of "those in power crave more power" and "power corrupts" and "absolute power corrupts absolutely". All three are basically saying the same thing and once a country has decided that the government has the power to regulate or control something, the government will generally do that to the extreme while looking for more places to begin the process.
In the US, we started with the federal government needing the power to prevent states from making economic pacts with each other while excluding other states. Yes, regulating interstate commerce started out to mean that no state could impose an excise tax on goods moving across state lines nor could any state do anything to cause products from state A to be artificially higher than products from state B. Now it means that if you don't buy health insurance you are negatively affecting interstate commerce because you might become sick and not produce enough goods and drag down interstate commerce.
Amazing how your love affair with Lenin, Stalin, Khrushchev, Putin, etc.has prevented you from also seeing the KGB correlation as well. With all the dictator references, it is amazing that the only one people seem to think is a problem is Hitler and Mussolini. I should also include Mao, Pol Pot and a slew of others but left leaning dictators seem to be all the rage over there.
And I was taught that fascism is an economic system very similar in nature to the old feudal system. That is, companies are held and run by private individuals who get to profit from them as long as they also produce the proper results for the government. Definitions of proper may vary from "produces enough goods" to "pays enough tax." If the government determines that the current owner is no longer properly utilizing an asset, the asset will be given to someone else.
Contrast this with communism which has no private ownership of anything and, therefore, no accountability either.
It is true that Nazi Germany combined the fascist economic form with a political system intended to minimize individual identity but the eastern bloc communist states also did that as well as Maoist China.
With all the talk and acceptance of "fairness" and "redistributing the wealth" going on here in the States (see Obama, Hillary Clinton, the anti-1% sentiment, etc.) we are certainly headed toward something much less free than where we have been and much more closely aligned with the two great foes of decades past than i am comfortable with. But hey, as long as somebody can get a BA degree in Black Women's Studies without paying for it and be guaranteed a house, car and all the food you want for life and not be expected to contribute to society, then who am i to claim.
Uh, the Committee for State Security was created to protect the Motherland? I believe the Fatherland was protected mainly by the Secret State Police. At least get your dictatorships correct.
Fascism and communism (marxism) are two very different economic models, neither of which technically depend on any form of secret police.
Ah poppy-cock. That outdated document only applies to means and methods that existed at the time of its writing. At least, that's what the left has been telling me for years as they try to outlaw my AR and XD-M.
Have they suddenly changed their minds?
Or are we now practicing situational constitutional principles application the same way we apply situational ethics?
So they are not connected to the government in any way at all EXCEPT most of their funding comes from a tax collected by the government on its behalf? Not exactly a model of independence.
According to the men who were involved in the Revolutionary War and in writing the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, all of the rights outlined in the Bill of Rights are natural rights. The Declaration of Independence enumerates the rights you listed: Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness. The 9th Amendment states "the enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people." Further the 10th Amendment reminds us that the Federal Government may take no power or restrict no right unless it is specifically and explicitly given that power in the Constitution or its amendments. That means that, even absent the 2nd Amendment, we would still have the fundamental right to own and bear arms.
The Founding Fathers wrote many times about the right to bear arms being a fundamental right as it is the best way to protect life and liberty. The Founding Fathers were also well aware of the fact that some in society would misuse their rights to the detriment of the rights of others. It is highly unlikely that they intended the misuse of a right by a very small minority to be a reason to limit the rights of the majority.
Your claiming that the potential for misuse of firearms to be the reason we must restrict their ownership, is actually the very reason why the right of such ownership must not be restricted. The very fact that firearms are the best weapon we have to defend ourselves makes them the most important weapon we have to protect our Lives and ensure our Liberty.
I have read the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence a few times and parts of the Federalist Papers as well as other writings of our Founding Fathers and not once have I read anywhere that they thought our enjoyment of our rights was subject to a cost/benefit analysis. Some of them did, however, share the contrary opinion: that sometimes we must suffer a bit because of someone else misusing their rights. Even those on the left who seem overwhelmingly agreeable to a forfeiture of what we colloquially refer to as "2nd Amendment Rights" agree that "it is better for a few guilty to go free rather than give up our rights." They are generally referring to 4th, 5th and 6th Amendment rights. However, when it comes to our 2nd Amendment rights, the saying gets perverted to "it is better for all of us to lose our rights because one or two might misuse them." Notice the cognitive dissonance going on in there.
I'm not sure simulating the motion of s steam-piston qualifies as computing. The "result" is much closer to the elementary school volcano for science class.
Actually, guns have a single purpose: to expel a projectile in the direction the gun is pointed. Drones have a single purpose: to fly wherever they are directed to fly.
I just love the rationalization you are using. You seem to be perfectly willing to give up your rights as long as a certain number of other people have abused that right (used it for malicious purposes). How about we all give up the right to travel freely from state to state or town to town because a fairly large number of people have been known to engage in those very activities for the purpose of committing crimes?
According to the link you posted, federal law applies when the call crosses state boundaries. That would make sense because federal law usually does apply to interstate transactions.
Slashdot Mirror
So, those who organized the American Revolution were only lying about their true beliefs? the Declaration of Independence is a clever forgery designed to hide their true intentions? What the hell are you talking about?
And, yes, I'll reiterate my point about gays appealing to the courts that their "rights" were being violated. The government had already issued its opinion about gay marriage in the form of a federal law. Many people have been killed by governments while protesting that their rights are being violated. i guess you are correct, as long as a government employee does the killing and someone in his chain of command told him to do it, then it was okay to do it,
Yes, i fully believe you are a statist and socialist (communist). An all-powerful government fully requires people to believe that they have only the rights that the government wants them to have. That way, they can all be good little sheep and enjoy the boots on their throats. If you ever get your dream all-powerful no restraints government, I hope it embodies every ideal you have because it would suck for you to get your dreamed for government only for it to outlaw talking to your neighbor about what the government might not be doing right because, you know, those in charge decided you didn't have that right.
According to your logic, if any President could convince enough of the military to back him, he could declare himself dictator for life and do away with elections and you would happily sit and enjoy being ruled by a dictator, regardless of how you were treated by his regime because, you know, you have absolutely no rights if he says so. What a miserable world-view to have.
No, i was citing examples of how the attitude that the Constitution only applies to things that existed at the time the Constitution was written. Many on the left like to claim that the 2nd amendment was only meant to cover muskets because that is what existed back then. Both sides have been guilty of using the logic to sidestep constitutional issues around listening to phone conversations (in the beginning of phone conversations) and then the phone and snail mail logic didn't apply to email. An the logic about papers in your house or in a safe-deposit box don't apply to storing an electronic document on somebody else's server.
I was hoping the last paragraph (especially the way off remark about none of them understanding any science) was clue enough about how I would answer my own question.
Personally, I believe that the US Constitution lays out broad principles that are supposed to guide us and that it may at times give some specific examples. For instance, the 3rd amendment discusses the quartering of troops in homes but i think the principle properly applied today would also include motor homes and travel trailers.
On the other hand, simply declaring it as outdated, inconvenient and to be ignored is also disrespecting it.However, we tend to call people who frequently do that "great constitutional scholars" and "professors of law specializing in constitutional law" and then elect them to high office and appoint them to the Supreme Court. Basically, we (society as a whole) have decided respecting the Constitution is for suckers and we need to get ours before he gets his.
Please educate yourself on exactly why the Bill of Rights was added. To put it succinctly, it was because many (most?) of the Founding Fathers were afraid of assholes like you who would claim that the government was all powerful. How right they were. And how right Samuel Clemens was with his commentary about fools and there mouths.
I guess it all depends on whether you subscribe to the notion that the US Constitution only applies to means and methods in existence as of its writing, doesn't it?
Papers and effects means only physical things in your possession or in transit to a second party. They don't include magnetic, optical or silicon storage media. Free speech means distributing hand printed pamphlets and shouting on the streets. It certainly doesn't include TV and radio ads or moving pictures or internet communications.
Interstate travel means walking or on horseback or horse-drawn wagon. It certainly does not mean cars, motorcycles and air travel.
Arms means muskets. It certainly doesn't mean modern handguns and semi-automatic rifles.
No sir, Those men who fought King George and wrote the US Constitution were such imbeciles they could never have foreseen technological changes so they most certainly never intended their writings to be used outside of what they had. I mean none of them knew anything of science. They all must have certainly believed that men had always been making transoceanic voyages in sailing ships and fighting with muskets and knives made of steel and printed pamphlets on printing presses. Certainly none of them could possibly have known that those things were relatively modern inventions.
On average? Not much.
Most of the time? Not much.
On occasion? Exactly what you imagine and imply
Isn't the ability to actually look around and notice that MVAs are actually a fairly rare occurrence wonderful? Isn't it awesome that such a seemingly well-phrased piece of "common sense" so easy to prove as a horribly inaccurate depiction of the real world?
Well, they were kind of required to build and maintain enough of them for the mail to get through. I believe that "required" implies "authorized."
And that attitude is exactly opposite of the whole movement that created the climate that allowed the American Revolution to take place. The men who led that revolution only did so because they held the view that their rights did not come from those with the guns (King George) but that they existed because we are human. Their words were that our rights were granted to us by our creator but far too many get hung up on whether there is a God or not and the phrase loses meaning to them. All such people have to do is substitute "random chance" or "nature" or "evolution" in place of Creator (as that fits their notion of Creator) and the meaning of the phrase does not change. We have rights because we exist. That men trample our rights does not diminish the fact that we have them.
According to your argument, gays fighting for their "right" to be marry was nonsensical and invalid because the "men with guns" had already said they didn't and the only valid way to gain that right was to gain it through the ballot; either by electing representatives who would alter the law or by direct ballot initiatives.
Likewise, your logic says that women do not have an unrestricted right to abortion in the US because the Supreme Court had no authority to deem the laws unconstitutional with Roe v. Wade as the Supreme Court controls no guns.
An example closer to home would be that if your neighbor can outgun you, then he gets any of your possessions he wants because he has the guns,
Just admit that your dreams of anarchy are bogus and join society already.
Not really, the 2nd amendment only reaffirmed that we have "the right to keep and bear arms." It has always been understood, even as the Founding Fathers wrote the Constitution and its first 10 amendments, that munitions and arms were not the same thing. The Founding Fathers did hold separate views between man portable arms and munitions such as cannon.
Whether encryption should be classed as a munition and regulatable (incorect, IMO) or as a means of communication and not regulatable (correct, IMO) is orthogonal to the argument of munitions vs arms and which is regulatable.
And the 9th and 10th reminding them that if it isn't explicitly given to the Feds or required of the Feds, they can't do it.
Is anyone still confused as to how requiring all citizens to purchase financial documents from a few government blessed entities can lead to the loss of all manner of rights? If so, start getting educated now before you lose anymore.
Well, restricting rights based on having misused them is actually quite commonplace in civilized and free societies. Assaulting someone is exercising a right to control the actions of all your bodily parts. Murdering someone with a gun is exercising your right to "keep and bear arms". Killing someone while driving drunk is exercising your right to drink and to "move about the country" (as a certain airline likes to phrase it). However, most societies rightly recognize that those are misuses of the mentioned rights and restrict the freedom of such offenders. Generally (in the US), we first restrict their freedom of movement and assembly. Then we continue to restrict their freedom "to keep and bear arms." Most European countries are no different in this regard.
Just because it gets restricted for having misused it, does not automatically mean it was never a right in the first place. It just means that the bar for restricting that right has been exceeded. Some societies set the bars at different heights than others.
Oh my, I replied, facetiously, towards the top of this thread about people believing that the US Constitution only applies to methods and means in existence at the time it was written. I included enough other words that I hope my intent to ridicule such beliefs was evident.
I'm not sure this AC had that same intent. It appears others disagree the the AC as well.
It really is more a case of "those in power crave more power" and "power corrupts" and "absolute power corrupts absolutely". All three are basically saying the same thing and once a country has decided that the government has the power to regulate or control something, the government will generally do that to the extreme while looking for more places to begin the process.
In the US, we started with the federal government needing the power to prevent states from making economic pacts with each other while excluding other states. Yes, regulating interstate commerce started out to mean that no state could impose an excise tax on goods moving across state lines nor could any state do anything to cause products from state A to be artificially higher than products from state B. Now it means that if you don't buy health insurance you are negatively affecting interstate commerce because you might become sick and not produce enough goods and drag down interstate commerce.
Amazing how your love affair with Lenin, Stalin, Khrushchev, Putin, etc.has prevented you from also seeing the KGB correlation as well. With all the dictator references, it is amazing that the only one people seem to think is a problem is Hitler and Mussolini. I should also include Mao, Pol Pot and a slew of others but left leaning dictators seem to be all the rage over there.
And I was taught that fascism is an economic system very similar in nature to the old feudal system. That is, companies are held and run by private individuals who get to profit from them as long as they also produce the proper results for the government. Definitions of proper may vary from "produces enough goods" to "pays enough tax." If the government determines that the current owner is no longer properly utilizing an asset, the asset will be given to someone else.
Contrast this with communism which has no private ownership of anything and, therefore, no accountability either.
It is true that Nazi Germany combined the fascist economic form with a political system intended to minimize individual identity but the eastern bloc communist states also did that as well as Maoist China.
With all the talk and acceptance of "fairness" and "redistributing the wealth" going on here in the States (see Obama, Hillary Clinton, the anti-1% sentiment, etc.) we are certainly headed toward something much less free than where we have been and much more closely aligned with the two great foes of decades past than i am comfortable with. But hey, as long as somebody can get a BA degree in Black Women's Studies without paying for it and be guaranteed a house, car and all the food you want for life and not be expected to contribute to society, then who am i to claim.
And here we have a perfect example of completely backwards logic arriving at the correct conclusion.
Uh, the Committee for State Security was created to protect the Motherland? I believe the Fatherland was protected mainly by the Secret State Police. At least get your dictatorships correct.
Fascism and communism (marxism) are two very different economic models, neither of which technically depend on any form of secret police.
Ah poppy-cock. That outdated document only applies to means and methods that existed at the time of its writing. At least, that's what the left has been telling me for years as they try to outlaw my AR and XD-M.
Have they suddenly changed their minds?
Or are we now practicing situational constitutional principles application the same way we apply situational ethics?
So they are not connected to the government in any way at all EXCEPT most of their funding comes from a tax collected by the government on its behalf? Not exactly a model of independence.
According to the men who were involved in the Revolutionary War and in writing the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, all of the rights outlined in the Bill of Rights are natural rights. The Declaration of Independence enumerates the rights you listed: Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness. The 9th Amendment states "the enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people." Further the 10th Amendment reminds us that the Federal Government may take no power or restrict no right unless it is specifically and explicitly given that power in the Constitution or its amendments. That means that, even absent the 2nd Amendment, we would still have the fundamental right to own and bear arms.
The Founding Fathers wrote many times about the right to bear arms being a fundamental right as it is the best way to protect life and liberty. The Founding Fathers were also well aware of the fact that some in society would misuse their rights to the detriment of the rights of others. It is highly unlikely that they intended the misuse of a right by a very small minority to be a reason to limit the rights of the majority.
Your claiming that the potential for misuse of firearms to be the reason we must restrict their ownership, is actually the very reason why the right of such ownership must not be restricted. The very fact that firearms are the best weapon we have to defend ourselves makes them the most important weapon we have to protect our Lives and ensure our Liberty.
I have read the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence a few times and parts of the Federalist Papers as well as other writings of our Founding Fathers and not once have I read anywhere that they thought our enjoyment of our rights was subject to a cost/benefit analysis. Some of them did, however, share the contrary opinion: that sometimes we must suffer a bit because of someone else misusing their rights. Even those on the left who seem overwhelmingly agreeable to a forfeiture of what we colloquially refer to as "2nd Amendment Rights" agree that "it is better for a few guilty to go free rather than give up our rights." They are generally referring to 4th, 5th and 6th Amendment rights. However, when it comes to our 2nd Amendment rights, the saying gets perverted to "it is better for all of us to lose our rights because one or two might misuse them." Notice the cognitive dissonance going on in there.
Like health insurance in the US?
I'm not sure simulating the motion of s steam-piston qualifies as computing. The "result" is much closer to the elementary school volcano for science class.
No, there is no possible way that blowing sand could ruin the polish on a mirror. No way at all.
Actually, guns have a single purpose: to expel a projectile in the direction the gun is pointed. Drones have a single purpose: to fly wherever they are directed to fly.
I just love the rationalization you are using. You seem to be perfectly willing to give up your rights as long as a certain number of other people have abused that right (used it for malicious purposes). How about we all give up the right to travel freely from state to state or town to town because a fairly large number of people have been known to engage in those very activities for the purpose of committing crimes?
According to the link you posted, federal law applies when the call crosses state boundaries. That would make sense because federal law usually does apply to interstate transactions.