So he's largely delegating on the kernel administrative side too. Again, he seems easily replaced for non-spokesperson non-figurehead roles. Which, again, indicates he did his job well.
Of course, while microkernels are apparently the obvious better choice, as they are everyone's theoretical wet dream, everyone who tried them realized that the waste due to the tight intetfaces between modues is too big, and that they hence will always be too inefficient.
With computer power so far beyond user demands, with so many layers in the software stack and/or application implemented with convenience rather than performance in mind, or implementation speed rather than execution speed if you prefer, the reduced performance of the light interfaces is rather insignificant overall. Greater reliability and security would outweigh such minor overall performance costs.
Once Linus is no longer maintaining the kernel (or has died), you will miss him more than you miss Steve Jobs.
Why? Hadn't Linus dropped off the top contributor list long ago? We are already well past the point where Linux development is done, or guided, by hobbyists; development is now dominated, and guided, by corporations.
Linus is more of an administrator in the development process, approving changes more than making changes. The corporations could easily supply someone for that role too.
Linus would be missed as a spokesperson, a figurehead, an occasional source of humor (ex. comments when irritated), but for day-to-day work he is completely replaceable. And being completely replaceable means he did his job correctly and his project will be healthy without him.
So not due to decommissioning nuclear power plants but rather that they're not reliable enough.
The decommissioning put them into the position where they no longer had surplus capacity. When a failure occurred they had to resort to coal. Had there not been these decommissionings they simply would have had a smaller surplus and no need to increase coal usage. So the root cause is still the decommissioning.
That the partisan fight is largely between two factions of the democratic party rather than democrats vs republicans isn't much of an argument that California is not a one party state. Its actually good evidence of this.:-)
States aren't people, they should have no say. The only thing that matters is the citizenry.
We are a union of states, the contract that created that union gave states a say. The citizenry are actually better off this way. Moderation and compromise are mandated, this often leads to better results than letting the mob have whatever the mob want.
Try reading past the first line. It does wonders for insight, give it a try.
Yes, it's all reinforcing the concept that the opinion of a person in a small state is more valuable than that of an individual in a large state.
The people get a proportional say in the House. The states get a proportional say in the Senate. No law can be enacted without the "people's" consent via the House. This is part of the checks and balances of the system that prevent the "wolves" from voting on lunch.
"“Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch.”
Benjamin Franklin"
The fear of such mob rule is why we are a republic rather than a pure democracy.
Sorry, the rationalization seems to be on your side. You can't get what you want *all* the time so the world is so unfair. In most areas proportionality dominates, there are merely a couple of checks/balances where it does not. This forces compromise which moderates change and often leads to better results.
Some federal issues have massive impact on individual states.
Small states only get equal representation in one part of the legislature. The other part of the legislature, the one that controls spending by the way, has proportional representation.
Temporary, and having more to do with the national economy than anything done in California.
... and has the most successful economy in the country.
Irrelevent, the legislature/governor have little to nothing to do with that.
If you're so concerned over the effectiveness of state governments maybe you should try generally voting for Democrats.
You suffer from a reading comprehension problem don't you, is it politically inspired? One party control is the problem. One ideological extreme getting all they want is the problem. You don't want either part in supermajority control. You want balance, you want them to have to compromise, that moderates the stupidity.
Furthermore, you don't seem to know how California divides politically. "Southern California" would most certainly be red.
Thank God for the 17th Amendment, or this would be the United States of New York and California.
The 17th Amendment weakened the protections that the Senate was supposed to provide.
Originally the 2 Senators were selected by the state legislatures. So we had the protection of the small states from day 1, this compromise was necessary to get the constitution ratified in the first place, to get a strong central government in the first place.
However by the 17th's allowing the popular election of the Senate we moved one step closer to the "mob rule" the founding father feared, we lost one of those checks and balances, lost a voice that was supposed to represent state interests.
"The reasoning behind the proposal is that California has gotten too big to be governed effectively"
Nonsense, the reason for this is to break up the largest Blue state to conservative's advantage.
Then why are the 3 subdivisions blue in nature? Its about increasing the proportion of blue in the Senate.
California lacks effective government because it is effectively a one party state, the legislature control by a (super)majority of very liberal democrats. There is no checks and balances of whatever dumbass idea they come up with. There is no forced compromise to moderate the stupidity. Until there is a political balance that forces more moderation and more compromise California will remain ungovernable, as will the 3 democrat controller subdivisions. We'll just have 3 dumbass legislatures that largely agree on things rather than the current. Little to no improvement.
It has always seemed weird to me that California has the same number of senators in Washington as North Dakota and Vermont.
Short version: Works as intended. Small states supposed to have disproportionate power. Forces more compromise.
Long version:
The organization of the US government is heavily influenced by the concept of checks and balances, forced compromise. Power spread among the three branches of government, executive, legislature, judicial. Power spread among the interests of the people and the interests of the states. Power spread among the slowly changing and the rapidly changing. Power spread among the large and the small states.
The Senate was designed to represent the state governments themselves and to be slowly changing (6 year terms rather than 2). Originally the senators were selected by the state governments. In 1913 things were changed so that Senators were directly elected by the people.
The Senate was also designed specifically so that the large states could not dominate the small states, effectively making them vassals. This was an essential compromise that allowed the formation of the country in the first place. The small states would not have otherwise voted for the constitution if they did not have some sort of protection. The Senate is their protection, their balance, their tool of compromise.
Keep in mind that the founding fathers not only feared powerful central governments, they also feared the poorly educated and overly emotional mob. They were worried the legislature could be dominated by the mob if purely directly elected. The Senate being selected by the state governments was intended to balance the influence of the mob with the influence of the better educated, the latter being more characteristic of those in the state governments compared to the average citizen.
Well, that was the theory... and in those days there was probably a large degree of truth to it. Today the Senate is a bit closer in composition to the House due to direct election so we have lost some of those benefits. However the protection of the small states still persists.
Do you have any source for that claim? CO2 output has decreased in the EU.
Apologies, I was working from memory and the doubling was for specific EU countries not overall. Yet overall there was still a huge increase. Ex:
"Overall exports to European nations totaled 16 million tons in the first five months of this year, up from 10.5 million in the same period last year [52% increase]... They included a surge to several European countries during the 2017 period, including a 175 percent increase in shipments to the United Kingdom, and a doubling to France - which had suffered a series of nuclear power plant outages that required it and regional neighbors to rely more heavily on coal."
https://www.reuters.com/articl...
A wise old friend of mine used to say, "You don't stay in business by screwing people."
Your friend actually seems rather ill-informed. The oldest type of business does exactly that, is quite successful and persistently survives attempts to put it out of business.;-)
Lol, kid why don't you tell that little gem to Martin Skrelli. I am sure he would agree with your little ill informed fallacy. (not a euphemism for your small penis by the way.)
No need, Martin Skrelli may have transitioned to the oldest profession by now or at least has a newfound understanding of it given his current circumstances.
A wise old friend of mine used to say, "You don't stay in business by screwing people."
Your friend actually seems rather ill-informed. The oldest type of business does exactly that, is quite successful and persistently survives attempts to put it out of business.;-)
So not onlly are we going to waste tons of electricity, we're going to pollute now too.
Don't get too smug, US coal exports to Europe have *doubled* to make up for the power shortfall from the decommissioning of some nuclear plants to appease environmentalists.
Hence my assumption that you agree that this oft quoted trope is a fantasy.
I'd agree with "fantasy", I wouldn't necessarily agree with "oft quoted". Except possibly in the sense of a minority opinion disproportionately quoted due to its outrageous nature and/or for framing a discussion purposes.
Self defense is exercising liberty so you are mistaken
Those two statements don't belong together. And your view is one dimensional. There is nothing wrong with reasonable self defence. But if one citizen shoots another then the net result is a loss of liberty, since a dead person cannot exercise any liberty. For this reason a true libertarian will always seek to minimise instances where that scenarios can arise. Logically then, the presence of guns in such a scenario is a negative to the overall exercise of liberty.
Reasonable self defense has nothing to do with the instruments used in that defense, reasonableness has to do with the nature of the situation. You also naively assume that self defense requires the discharge of a firearm (example below). And your logic fails with respect to net liberty, a successful attack upon an innocent is also a net loss, when engaging in such an attack an attacker has forsaken their right to liberty. The liberty of the attacker and the liberty of the attacked are not equivalent.
There is no right to riot.
Well, there is. People in France (arguably the ideological home of the liberty) riot all the time. In the US, it is (arguably) protected under the First and Second amendments, which drew on similar enlightenment principles. You just meekly gave up more essential liberties in exchange for baubles.
You seem to conflate vandalism and rioting. Breaking windows during a demonstration is vandalism, rioting with its assaults and arson is something different.
. In the 1990 LA riots Korean shopkeepers were specifically targeted for violence by some rioters.
If they broke the law, then punish them according to the law. Right to fair trial is an essential liberty. And so is the right to protest. Just because they are racist arseholes doesn't mean they don't have rights. Does this sound at all familiar to you?
Again, you falsely conflate protest with riot, protest with a racist attack on people. More importantly the presence of firearms among the targeted population prevented violence. The racially inspired attacks never occurred due to the targeted potential victims being openly armed. An example of an earlier point, that self defense does not necessarily require the firing of a weapon. And to get all historical again, the local Korean merchants openly arming themselves and defending their neighborhood was a historical militia-like activity.
The arson that accompanies some riots can also endanger lives.
Also, shooting someone endangers their life. So that didn't work. Say, maybe you could, I dunno, punish them according to the law. because maybe the right to fair trial is an essential liberty?
Again, the life and liberty of the attacker and the victim are not equivalent, foregoing self defense may merely result in a successful attack. The preservation of the attacker's life at the cost of the victim's life.
So you accept the argument that guns are useless for defending against tyranny, which is what I actually said.
Actually you said "gun ownership has no actual impact on a persons liberty". Self defense is exercising liberty so you are mistaken. Another personal liberty would be engaging in hunting and sport shooting. You seem rather misinformed on this topic.
... citizens are rioting as an expression of grievance against the government...
There is no right to riot. In the 1990 LA riots Korean shopkeepers were specifically targeted for violence by some rioters. The arson that accompanies some riots can also endanger lives. Your assumption that rioting is about breaking glass windows further demonstrates your misinformed understanding of this topic.
I'm not arguing about it's utility at the time it was drafted. It might have served it's intended purpose for a while, it might not have. The fact is, in modern times, the 'right' to own a gun is no more essential to liberty than the 'right' to own toothpaste or pseudoephedrine.
You ignore the right to self defense, which the Supreme Court recognized as a right derived from the second amendment. Self defense being a historic militia activity as well, so the spirit of the original militia persists into modernity in that sense. Actually it exists in rare other senses as well, suppressing a riot for example, witness the armed business owners of the 1990s LA riots. Only the militia in the sense of military conflict is obsolete.
Also to this day by federal law the federal militia includes all able bodied male citizens age 18-45. There is no enlistment, no signup, no requirement to show up anywhere and train, you are in automatically. This is the "inactive" component component of the militia, the national guard is the "active" component of the militia. The national guard is not the entire militia. Armed citizens with no prior armed forces affiliation are also part of the federal militia.
I don't think that is quite true. Congress does get to organize and decide the training standards of the militia (Article I, Clause 15 & 16), and as things have it, they have essentially made organization and training for the militia into joining the National Guard (ie active military) and any militia which hasn't done so is not covered by articles of war and can be tried for disobeience.Larger discussion here.
I used "active" and "inactive" when I should have used "organized" and "unorganized". Apologies for any confusion. The national guard remains only part of the militia, the organized part, the remaining able bodied males of military age with no existing connection to the armed forces whatsoever the unorganized part:
"10 U.S. Code 246 - Militia: composition and classes
(a) The militia of the United States consists of all able-bodied males at least 17 years of age and, except as provided in section 313 of title 32, under 45 years of age who are, or who have made a declaration of intention to become, citizens of the United States and of female citizens of the United States who are members of the National Guard.
(b) The classes of the militia are—
(1) the organized militia, which consists of the National Guard and the Naval Militia; and
(2) the unorganized militia, which consists of the members of the militia who are not members of the National Guard or the Naval Militia." https://www.law.cornell.edu/us...
"32 U.S. Code 313 - Appointments and enlistments: age limitations
(a) To be eligible for original enlistment in the National Guard, a person must be at least 17 years of age and under 45, or under 64 years of age and a former member of the Regular Army, Regular Navy, Regular Air Force, or Regular Marine Corps. To be eligible for reenlistment, a person must be under 64 years of age.
(b) To be eligible for appointment as an officer of the National Guard, a person must
(1) be a citizen of the United States; and
(2) be at least 18 years of age and under 64." https://www.law.cornell.edu/us...
States may have similar laws regarding the unorganized state militia.
... free speech is a fundamental right necessary of the upholding of liberty, and gun ownership has no actual impact on a persons liberty, anymore than the "right' to buy toothpaste, or certain sorts of drugs...
You are misinformed. The Bill of Rights was specifically added to address what was considered fundamental rights, the inclusion of private ownership is its defacto establishment as fundamental. The fact that private ownership of firearms was the second item listed suggests its relative importance.
Private ownership of firearms was fundamental because the militia was a fundamental element of national defense in constitutional days, and local "law enforcement" to some degree. The "standing army", the regulars, was quite small. Militia members were commonly equipped with their personal privately owned weapons. The text of the second amendment is establishing the right to private ownership so that militias may be more easily equipped. In a practical sense militias had sometimes been better equipped than the regulars, for example the Pennsylvania and Kentucky rifles some militia brought from home compared to the muskets issued by the army.
You might argue that we have a large regular army, that the national guard is the modern citizen soldiers / militia, and police forces. True, but that does not change the legal fact that we also still have a federal militia to this day and the national guard is defined to be only part of that militia, the active part. There is also an inactive part that by federal law is composed of all able bodied males age 18-45. This inactive part required no signing up, there is no obligation to show up anywhere... well, until drafted, which is legally transferring you from inactive militia to regular reserves. So even today, the existence of a militia where all military age men are legal members, is a fundamental part of national defense. Its the legal underpinning of conscription, the draft.
While militia called to active service (drafted civilians) no longer need to bring their own weapons, the fact remains that in constitutional days this was common, hence fundamental, hence the reason a personal individual right to firearms was established, a right that helped ensure that militias were "well-regulated", ie properly equipped and trained.
OK, beyond the draft, a federal militia is a bit of an anachronism... until you also consider that in the constitutional era it also had a "law enforcement" / "peace keeping" / "self defense" role. The later, self defense, is recognized by the US supplement court as a right derived from the second amendment. So the second amendment has a fundamental role to this day.
Slashdot Mirror
yeah but it cannot be linux as he hold and defend that trademark
An heir will sell the trademark to Microsoft of Oracle. :-)
So he's largely delegating on the kernel administrative side too. Again, he seems easily replaced for non-spokesperson non-figurehead roles. Which, again, indicates he did his job well.
Of course, while microkernels are apparently the obvious better choice, as they are everyone's theoretical wet dream, everyone who tried them realized that the waste due to the tight intetfaces between modues is too big, and that they hence will always be too inefficient.
With computer power so far beyond user demands, with so many layers in the software stack and/or application implemented with convenience rather than performance in mind, or implementation speed rather than execution speed if you prefer, the reduced performance of the light interfaces is rather insignificant overall. Greater reliability and security would outweigh such minor overall performance costs.
Once Linus is no longer maintaining the kernel (or has died), you will miss him more than you miss Steve Jobs.
Why? Hadn't Linus dropped off the top contributor list long ago? We are already well past the point where Linux development is done, or guided, by hobbyists; development is now dominated, and guided, by corporations.
Linus is more of an administrator in the development process, approving changes more than making changes. The corporations could easily supply someone for that role too.
Linus would be missed as a spokesperson, a figurehead, an occasional source of humor (ex. comments when irritated), but for day-to-day work he is completely replaceable. And being completely replaceable means he did his job correctly and his project will be healthy without him.
So not due to decommissioning nuclear power plants but rather that they're not reliable enough.
The decommissioning put them into the position where they no longer had surplus capacity. When a failure occurred they had to resort to coal. Had there not been these decommissionings they simply would have had a smaller surplus and no need to increase coal usage. So the root cause is still the decommissioning.
That the partisan fight is largely between two factions of the democratic party rather than democrats vs republicans isn't much of an argument that California is not a one party state. Its actually good evidence of this. :-)
States aren't people, they should have no say. The only thing that matters is the citizenry.
We are a union of states, the contract that created that union gave states a say. The citizenry are actually better off this way. Moderation and compromise are mandated, this often leads to better results than letting the mob have whatever the mob want.
Try reading past the first line. It does wonders for insight, give it a try.
Yes, it's all reinforcing the concept that the opinion of a person in a small state is more valuable than that of an individual in a large state.
The people get a proportional say in the House. The states get a proportional say in the Senate. No law can be enacted without the "people's" consent via the House. This is part of the checks and balances of the system that prevent the "wolves" from voting on lunch.
"“Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch.”
Benjamin Franklin"
The fear of such mob rule is why we are a republic rather than a pure democracy.
Sorry, the rationalization seems to be on your side. You can't get what you want *all* the time so the world is so unfair. In most areas proportionality dominates, there are merely a couple of checks/balances where it does not. This forces compromise which moderates change and often leads to better results.
Some federal issues have massive impact on individual states.
Small states only get equal representation in one part of the legislature. The other part of the legislature, the one that controls spending by the way, has proportional representation.
California is running a budget surplus ...
Temporary, and having more to do with the national economy than anything done in California.
... and has the most successful economy in the country.
Irrelevent, the legislature/governor have little to nothing to do with that.
If you're so concerned over the effectiveness of state governments maybe you should try generally voting for Democrats.
You suffer from a reading comprehension problem don't you, is it politically inspired? One party control is the problem. One ideological extreme getting all they want is the problem. You don't want either part in supermajority control. You want balance, you want them to have to compromise, that moderates the stupidity.
Furthermore, you don't seem to know how California divides politically. "Southern California" would most certainly be red.
You are amazingly ignorant of the facts. Examine the blueness on the county results map.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Thank God for the 17th Amendment, or this would be the United States of New York and California.
The 17th Amendment weakened the protections that the Senate was supposed to provide.
Originally the 2 Senators were selected by the state legislatures. So we had the protection of the small states from day 1, this compromise was necessary to get the constitution ratified in the first place, to get a strong central government in the first place.
However by the 17th's allowing the popular election of the Senate we moved one step closer to the "mob rule" the founding father feared, we lost one of those checks and balances, lost a voice that was supposed to represent state interests.
Small states supposed to have disproportionate power.
So some people are more equal than others. Seems fair.
Try reading past the first line. It does wonders for insight, give it a try.
From tfa
"The reasoning behind the proposal is that California has gotten too big to be governed effectively"
Nonsense, the reason for this is to break up the largest Blue state to conservative's advantage.
Then why are the 3 subdivisions blue in nature? Its about increasing the proportion of blue in the Senate.
California lacks effective government because it is effectively a one party state, the legislature control by a (super)majority of very liberal democrats. There is no checks and balances of whatever dumbass idea they come up with. There is no forced compromise to moderate the stupidity. Until there is a political balance that forces more moderation and more compromise California will remain ungovernable, as will the 3 democrat controller subdivisions. We'll just have 3 dumbass legislatures that largely agree on things rather than the current. Little to no improvement.
So the allocation of counties represents political senatorial gerrymandering.
It has always seemed weird to me that California has the same number of senators in Washington as North Dakota and Vermont.
Short version: Works as intended. Small states supposed to have disproportionate power. Forces more compromise.
... and in those days there was probably a large degree of truth to it. Today the Senate is a bit closer in composition to the House due to direct election so we have lost some of those benefits. However the protection of the small states still persists.
Long version:
The organization of the US government is heavily influenced by the concept of checks and balances, forced compromise. Power spread among the three branches of government, executive, legislature, judicial. Power spread among the interests of the people and the interests of the states. Power spread among the slowly changing and the rapidly changing. Power spread among the large and the small states.
The Senate was designed to represent the state governments themselves and to be slowly changing (6 year terms rather than 2). Originally the senators were selected by the state governments. In 1913 things were changed so that Senators were directly elected by the people.
The Senate was also designed specifically so that the large states could not dominate the small states, effectively making them vassals. This was an essential compromise that allowed the formation of the country in the first place. The small states would not have otherwise voted for the constitution if they did not have some sort of protection. The Senate is their protection, their balance, their tool of compromise.
Keep in mind that the founding fathers not only feared powerful central governments, they also feared the poorly educated and overly emotional mob. They were worried the legislature could be dominated by the mob if purely directly elected. The Senate being selected by the state governments was intended to balance the influence of the mob with the influence of the better educated, the latter being more characteristic of those in the state governments compared to the average citizen.
Well, that was the theory
Do you have any source for that claim? CO2 output has decreased in the EU.
Apologies, I was working from memory and the doubling was for specific EU countries not overall. Yet overall there was still a huge increase. Ex: ... They included a surge to several European countries during the 2017 period, including a 175 percent increase in shipments to the United Kingdom, and a doubling to France - which had suffered a series of nuclear power plant outages that required it and regional neighbors to rely more heavily on coal."
https://www.reuters.com/articl...
"Overall exports to European nations totaled 16 million tons in the first five months of this year, up from 10.5 million in the same period last year [52% increase]
A wise old friend of mine used to say, "You don't stay in business by screwing people."
Your friend actually seems rather ill-informed. The oldest type of business does exactly that, is quite successful and persistently survives attempts to put it out of business. ;-)
Lol, kid why don't you tell that little gem to Martin Skrelli. I am sure he would agree with your little ill informed fallacy. (not a euphemism for your small penis by the way.)
No need, Martin Skrelli may have transitioned to the oldest profession by now or at least has a newfound understanding of it given his current circumstances.
Businesses need a profit.
That is why we also have government and university based research. For profit corporations are not the only providers.
A wise old friend of mine used to say, "You don't stay in business by screwing people."
Your friend actually seems rather ill-informed. The oldest type of business does exactly that, is quite successful and persistently survives attempts to put it out of business. ;-)
So not onlly are we going to waste tons of electricity, we're going to pollute now too.
Don't get too smug, US coal exports to Europe have *doubled* to make up for the power shortfall from the decommissioning of some nuclear plants to appease environmentalists.
Hence my assumption that you agree that this oft quoted trope is a fantasy.
I'd agree with "fantasy", I wouldn't necessarily agree with "oft quoted". Except possibly in the sense of a minority opinion disproportionately quoted due to its outrageous nature and/or for framing a discussion purposes.
Self defense is exercising liberty so you are mistaken
Those two statements don't belong together. And your view is one dimensional. There is nothing wrong with reasonable self defence. But if one citizen shoots another then the net result is a loss of liberty, since a dead person cannot exercise any liberty. For this reason a true libertarian will always seek to minimise instances where that scenarios can arise. Logically then, the presence of guns in such a scenario is a negative to the overall exercise of liberty.
Reasonable self defense has nothing to do with the instruments used in that defense, reasonableness has to do with the nature of the situation. You also naively assume that self defense requires the discharge of a firearm (example below). And your logic fails with respect to net liberty, a successful attack upon an innocent is also a net loss, when engaging in such an attack an attacker has forsaken their right to liberty. The liberty of the attacker and the liberty of the attacked are not equivalent.
There is no right to riot.
Well, there is. People in France (arguably the ideological home of the liberty) riot all the time. In the US, it is (arguably) protected under the First and Second amendments, which drew on similar enlightenment principles. You just meekly gave up more essential liberties in exchange for baubles.
You seem to conflate vandalism and rioting. Breaking windows during a demonstration is vandalism, rioting with its assaults and arson is something different.
. In the 1990 LA riots Korean shopkeepers were specifically targeted for violence by some rioters.
If they broke the law, then punish them according to the law. Right to fair trial is an essential liberty. And so is the right to protest. Just because they are racist arseholes doesn't mean they don't have rights. Does this sound at all familiar to you?
Again, you falsely conflate protest with riot, protest with a racist attack on people. More importantly the presence of firearms among the targeted population prevented violence. The racially inspired attacks never occurred due to the targeted potential victims being openly armed. An example of an earlier point, that self defense does not necessarily require the firing of a weapon. And to get all historical again, the local Korean merchants openly arming themselves and defending their neighborhood was a historical militia-like activity.
The arson that accompanies some riots can also endanger lives.
Also, shooting someone endangers their life. So that didn't work. Say, maybe you could, I dunno, punish them according to the law. because maybe the right to fair trial is an essential liberty?
Again, the life and liberty of the attacker and the victim are not equivalent, foregoing self defense may merely result in a successful attack. The preservation of the attacker's life at the cost of the victim's life.
So you accept the argument that guns are useless for defending against tyranny, which is what I actually said.
Actually you said "gun ownership has no actual impact on a persons liberty". Self defense is exercising liberty so you are mistaken. Another personal liberty would be engaging in hunting and sport shooting. You seem rather misinformed on this topic.
... citizens are rioting as an expression of grievance against the government ...
There is no right to riot. In the 1990 LA riots Korean shopkeepers were specifically targeted for violence by some rioters. The arson that accompanies some riots can also endanger lives. Your assumption that rioting is about breaking glass windows further demonstrates your misinformed understanding of this topic.
I'm not arguing about it's utility at the time it was drafted. It might have served it's intended purpose for a while, it might not have. The fact is, in modern times, the 'right' to own a gun is no more essential to liberty than the 'right' to own toothpaste or pseudoephedrine.
You ignore the right to self defense, which the Supreme Court recognized as a right derived from the second amendment. Self defense being a historic militia activity as well, so the spirit of the original militia persists into modernity in that sense. Actually it exists in rare other senses as well, suppressing a riot for example, witness the armed business owners of the 1990s LA riots. Only the militia in the sense of military conflict is obsolete.
Also to this day by federal law the federal militia includes all able bodied male citizens age 18-45. There is no enlistment, no signup, no requirement to show up anywhere and train, you are in automatically. This is the "inactive" component component of the militia, the national guard is the "active" component of the militia. The national guard is not the entire militia. Armed citizens with no prior armed forces affiliation are also part of the federal militia.
I don't think that is quite true. Congress does get to organize and decide the training standards of the militia (Article I, Clause 15 & 16), and as things have it, they have essentially made organization and training for the militia into joining the National Guard (ie active military) and any militia which hasn't done so is not covered by articles of war and can be tried for disobeience.Larger discussion here.
I used "active" and "inactive" when I should have used "organized" and "unorganized". Apologies for any confusion. The national guard remains only part of the militia, the organized part, the remaining able bodied males of military age with no existing connection to the armed forces whatsoever the unorganized part:
"10 U.S. Code 246 - Militia: composition and classes
(a) The militia of the United States consists of all able-bodied males at least 17 years of age and, except as provided in section 313 of title 32, under 45 years of age who are, or who have made a declaration of intention to become, citizens of the United States and of female citizens of the United States who are members of the National Guard.
(b) The classes of the militia are—
(1) the organized militia, which consists of the National Guard and the Naval Militia; and
(2) the unorganized militia, which consists of the members of the militia who are not members of the National Guard or the Naval Militia."
https://www.law.cornell.edu/us...
"32 U.S. Code 313 - Appointments and enlistments: age limitations
(a) To be eligible for original enlistment in the National Guard, a person must be at least 17 years of age and under 45, or under 64 years of age and a former member of the Regular Army, Regular Navy, Regular Air Force, or Regular Marine Corps. To be eligible for reenlistment, a person must be under 64 years of age.
(b) To be eligible for appointment as an officer of the National Guard, a person must
(1) be a citizen of the United States; and
(2) be at least 18 years of age and under 64."
https://www.law.cornell.edu/us...
States may have similar laws regarding the unorganized state militia.
... free speech is a fundamental right necessary of the upholding of liberty, and gun ownership has no actual impact on a persons liberty, anymore than the "right' to buy toothpaste, or certain sorts of drugs ...
You are misinformed. The Bill of Rights was specifically added to address what was considered fundamental rights, the inclusion of private ownership is its defacto establishment as fundamental. The fact that private ownership of firearms was the second item listed suggests its relative importance.
... well, until drafted, which is legally transferring you from inactive militia to regular reserves. So even today, the existence of a militia where all military age men are legal members, is a fundamental part of national defense. Its the legal underpinning of conscription, the draft.
... until you also consider that in the constitutional era it also had a "law enforcement" / "peace keeping" / "self defense" role. The later, self defense, is recognized by the US supplement court as a right derived from the second amendment. So the second amendment has a fundamental role to this day.
Private ownership of firearms was fundamental because the militia was a fundamental element of national defense in constitutional days, and local "law enforcement" to some degree. The "standing army", the regulars, was quite small. Militia members were commonly equipped with their personal privately owned weapons. The text of the second amendment is establishing the right to private ownership so that militias may be more easily equipped. In a practical sense militias had sometimes been better equipped than the regulars, for example the Pennsylvania and Kentucky rifles some militia brought from home compared to the muskets issued by the army.
You might argue that we have a large regular army, that the national guard is the modern citizen soldiers / militia, and police forces. True, but that does not change the legal fact that we also still have a federal militia to this day and the national guard is defined to be only part of that militia, the active part. There is also an inactive part that by federal law is composed of all able bodied males age 18-45. This inactive part required no signing up, there is no obligation to show up anywhere
While militia called to active service (drafted civilians) no longer need to bring their own weapons, the fact remains that in constitutional days this was common, hence fundamental, hence the reason a personal individual right to firearms was established, a right that helped ensure that militias were "well-regulated", ie properly equipped and trained.
OK, beyond the draft, a federal militia is a bit of an anachronism