If a hostile missile is covered with mirrors will that not just reflect the beam, and a adjustable mirror can take the drone out.
Much more effective to simply locate the drone operators and kill them and their superiors if possible.
If armed drones are used domestically against civilians, kill the drone operator's and their superior's families & children as well in the most horrid & excruciating ways possible. Ideally, kill the families/children right in front of said domestic armed-drone operators & superiors before they die, and then publicly release videos of their horrific deaths as a disincentive for future domestic armed-drone use against civilians.
Is that "top-six largest US cities which happen to also have the strictest, most onerous anti-gun laws" or "top-six largest US cities and then screw the results so we only look at the ones with strict gun laws"?
I replied on impulse and from memory. I believe it was more like if you remove the gang-related gun violence stats from the 12 largest cities, many of which have some of the strictest & most onerous gun laws, the US averages for gun violence/deaths is somewhere in the middle of the international averages.
The point stands, however, that the "highest gun violence rates" claim against the US compared to international stats is disingenuous, misleading, and wrong.
Direct quotes from a United States Department of Justice report released by the Obama Administration in November of 2011. Link below.
âoeBlacks were disproportionately represented as both homicide victims and offenders. The victimization rate for blacks (27.8 per 100,000) was 6 times higher than the rate for whites (4.5 per 100,000). The offending rate for blacks (34.4 per 100,000) was almost 8 times higher than the rate for whites (4.5 per 100,000).â
âoeMales represented 77% of homicide victims and nearly 90% of offenders. The victimization rate for males (11.6 per 100,000) was 3 times higher than the rate for females (3.4 per 100,000). The offending rate for males (15.1 per 100,000) was almost 9 times higher than the rate for females (1.7 per 100,000).â
âoeApproximately a third (34%) of murder victims and almost half (49%) of the offenders were under age 25. For both victims and offenders, the rate per 100,000 peaked in the 18 to 24 year-old age group at 17.1 victims per 100,000 and 29.3 offenders per 100,000.â
> The vast majority of the US is in no way some sort of ultra-violent "wild west", as some who have swallowed the propaganda and are anti-2A/anti-US, try to paint the whole nation.
The majority of this "propaganda" comes from your own cop shows.
Gee, a US TV entertainment show dramatizes it's content? They're not documentaries???/sarc
Sounds more like people not being intelligent enough to differentiate between fantasy and reality.
The propaganda I'm talking about and that I know you're well aware of despite your snark comes from the government and anti-gun groups.
Guns are like the panopticon, in that once the technology is out there neither ever will, or even can, be made to go away. The only logical action, as with the panopticon, is to make them universally available for anyone to purchase and possess who is not either underage, psychologically unstable, or a convicted criminal prohibited from owning firearms.
"An armed society is a polite society."
"An armed man is a citizen. A disarmed man is a subject."
"Firearms stand next in importance to the constitution itself. They are the American people's liberty teeth and keystone under independence ⦠from the hour the Pilgrims landed to the present day, events, occurrences and tendencies prove that to ensure peace security and happiness, the rifle and pistol are equally indispensable ⦠the very atmosphere of firearms anywhere restrains evil interference â" they deserve a place of honor with all that's good." - George Washington
Lol, when every US cop show has more shooting in the intro than an entire series of a comparable BBC show of much better quality, and you keep shooting each other at worlds highest rates, it seems spot on to me.
This is disingenuous as well as plain wrong.
If you take out the stats for inner-city drug-gang-related firearm murders/shootings in the top-six largest US cities with the strictest, most onerous anti-gun laws, the US is right in the middle of international gun crime/murder stats. Gang activity is responsible for about 48% of violent crime in most jurisdictions, and up to 90% in some. The vast majority of the US is in no way some sort of ultra-violent "wild west", as some who have swallowed the propaganda and are anti-2A/anti-US, try to paint the whole nation.
The US "war on some drugs" is overwhelmingly the most responsible for violent crime including gun violence, aggravated by government increasingly restricting the ability for law-abiding and peaceful potential victims to legally possess and carry firearms for protection, for the daily deluge of tragic drug-financed gang-related deaths in the US and the corresponding high gun-crime rates in those inner cities that push the national numbers up.
It's much easier for US politicians, as it shifts blame and attention away from their power-grabbing "war on some drugs" (and increasingly the "war on 'terrism'") and attacks on civil rights across the board, and works in favor of ever-more-intrusive and abusive government control of the people if privately-owned firearms are vilified and owners demonized instead of addressing the true causes which the government is largely responsible for in the first place.
Don't listen to what they say. It's all just propaganda and pandering to manipulate the ignorant. gullible, apathetic, & plain stupid.
Watch carefully what they do and what the results are. Otherwise, you may just find yourself in a Pink Floyd song.
"Listen son, said the man with the gun, there's room for you inside." - "Us And Them" - Dark Side Of The Moon - Pink Floyd
Yes, I agree in principle. But remember that the state is supposed to report to us. As an organization, it has the power to organize, and perform organized action. The problem in the US today is that (1) the state no longer reports to us (it reports to special interests), and (2) the size of the state has grown way beyond what we can reasonably expect to control, and beyond what can reasonably be expected to work right. I would favor returning most of the functions of the federal government back to the individual US states, where there would be more local control, and we could compare what works in one state versus another. I think it is still useful to have some level of 'altruism' provided by the individual states, at the behest of their constituents (voters). But the federal government is too large to do anything right and it is too far removed from us, and has become a huge candy store for special interests of all kinds.
Agreed. The Federal government must be drastically reduced in size, power, and cost, and that power and wealth returned to the States and to the people. Government should be as local as possible.
Thanks. I was wondering if anyone read all that and grasped the concepts I was trying to communicate.
I got on a roll getting these concepts all typed out, and was actually surprised my post ended up being so long. Ah, well. It's extremely difficult to put such large & far-reaching concepts into few words and still communicate those concepts accurately and effectively.
I agree in principle but it is not all-or-nothing. There is an appropriate balance. Keeping the right balance is hard: it is an endless tug of war among special interests of all kinds.
The idea of individual altruism in and of itself is not a bad thing.
It's when the government removes the element of individual voluntarism and turns it into a non-voluntary mandatory mass program, that altruism is turned into forced sacrifice that puts the needs of others before one's own needs, and becomes tyranny.
Altruism must be a voluntary and individual choice, not compelled under threat of force by the State.
I'm sorry you have to live in a society that demands individual responsibility or doing things for others than yourself. Maybe all you Galts can move to Belieze like Mcafee tried.
Every dictatorship is based upon altruism at it's core. It starts as "you should sacrifice for others", then morphs to "you *will* sacrifice for others", then finally moves to "you will sacrifice for others even against and beyond the best interests of you and your family".
Altruism compelled by the State is collectivism, and collectivism in it's many & various forms never works well as a pillar of government and/or society. Collectivism insures everyone is forced to the lowest common denominator and results in the only things it actually succeeds at making equal...poverty, tyranny, and suffering for all.
I get propaganda from both sides in my mailbox on a daily basis. The left's arguments appeal to one's intelligence, the right appeals to emotion.
Hmm, well, I find exactly the opposite. There was a study done by a prestigious university (Yale, IIRC) here recently that I'm too lazy to Google that shocked the Yale professor conducting the study, that revealed that TEA Party members score higher on science knowledge than the average, and above those who self-identify as Left/Democrat.
In any case, the politicians in both parties want the same things, just not the things you mentioned so much. They want to protect their incumbent position. They want to increase their own power and personal wealth by continuing to grow the power and scope of government along with the amount of wealth, capital, and resources in the economy it/they control.
They want to buy votes with entitlements and social programs, engage in gerrymandering, all along with also selling influence to insure re-election. It's not unexpected given the amount of power & wealth the government controls. Governments always tend to expand and eventually become authoritarian if unchecked.
The Left has always used appeals to emotion and hot emotional issues to advance their agendas. This is simply fact, not a judgment. Much of the differences in worldview have to do with real-world knowledge gained through experience and growing emotional maturity as people get older.
"Any man who is under 30, and is not a liberal, has no heart; and any man who is over 30, and is not a conservative, has no brains." - Winston Churchill
When I was much, much, younger and in my last years of school and the first few years after I graduated, my views were much more Left than they are now. I learned as I gained age, experience, and emotional maturity, personally observed decades of history happening, and cumulatively read and listened to more and more sources, opinions, arguments, debates, etc etc.
I've ended up as a sort of "pragmatic libertarian" out of the body of my half-century's-worth of practical real-world knowledge and experience, combined with intellectual honesty rather than emotions and good intentions.
Every dictatorship is based on altruism at it's core. It says at first that "you should sacrifice for others", but that always becomes "not only must you sacrifice for others, you must actually put others ahead of you and your family's own well-being".
Big altruistic social plans from government sound good to the un/under-educated, heavily-propagandized, economically-manipulated and intentionally impoverished masses, and that's why dictatorships and other types of tyrannies will always spring up when the population becomes uninformed/educated and apathetic enough, and the government grows large enough.
The arguments over capitalism/communism/socialism/fascism/left/right are actually irrelevant. Those are only the structures. What matters is the scale between:
Absolute Tyranny =====Total Anarchy
It's where on that scale the government is at that matters to regular people and is the right discussion to have.
It's ultimately a struggle of Authoritarians vs Libertarians (the concepts, not any party).
Those who believe that people are unable to govern themselves by mutual consent, that government should have control of everything and everyone, that everyone should be made "equal" by taking the fruits of the labors of producers by force and redistributing it to those who do not produce anything, versus those that believe that the individual should be as free as possible to succeed or fail on their own, with most government being local, and with as little central government size, scope, cost, and control as possible while still maintaining a stable society and nation.
Like distributed computer networks require much more effort to take over each individual computer node than it does to take over a network consisting of a central server and dumb terminals, where comp
Doesn't this amount to the Department of the Defense propagandizing directly to the U.S. public? What is acceptable and what is not?
I can see press conferences, announcements, and factual information, but when does it become an attempt to persuade the public?
Oh, you didn't hear? They repealed the law that forbade the US government from using it's (formerly) foreign propaganda tools and assets domestically against US citizens.
What I find interesting is that we see publications as politically/ideologically diverse as Daily KOS and Free Republic both highly critical of this travesty.
If only people would stop looking at only what they differ on and unite on what they agree on. That's how the government and their lackeys plays people. They stir up wedge-issue shit, create a carefully-crafted narrative, and push it through the various communications medias to enrage and divide people and suck all of the oxygen out of the air for public discussion about actual meaningful oversight, reform, and accountability of government and the political class.
I guarantee that even as a white male in his mid-50s, I and a 16-YO black or Latino gang-banger in the 'hood STILL have far, far more in common and agree with each other's views far more across the board then either of us would with the average Washington D.C. politician or apparatchik, regardless of political party.
Instead of, for instance, arguing over "racism" over the Trayvon/Zimmerman incident, how about holding those responsible for the 35% black unemployment rate and the generally crap economy that had Trayvon and has many more like him out on the streets instead of working a job and raising a family, responsible for their actions or lack of, and craft some practical solutions instead of trying to start a race war.
Same thing with Chicago/Detroit gun violence...treat the cause not the symptoms. Hold the politicians responsible for the high poverty & unemployment in those cities and others around nation responsible for the crime, violence, and hopelessness it breeds instead of attempting to shift the blame to 2A rights and individual gun ownership.
Always watch the other hand. Do you really think any of those politicians and political apparatchiks give a single damn about gun deaths or racism? All any of them (outside of a couple of pariahs of the mainstream party-establishments) actually care about is securing and increasing their wealth & power by increasing and broadening every aspect of their control over YOU.
"The Canadians could probably defeat the US in the state the US military and it's leadership is in."
If they do, will they burn the white house down again?
I don't know, maybe if we asked them nice and provided the gasoline & torch for free? Take up a collection?
If there was a nuclear war, the last place our enemies would strike would be Washington, D.C. You don't take the enemies' own millstone from around his neck.
Please, show me what law explicitly requires the police to ignore evidence they see during an otherwise-allowed search.
That's just it. The police did NOT seize evidence that was in plain sight. They actively opened filing cabinets and file folders and read through documents. That's not a search for firearms. The specific documents would have had to have been specified in the search warrant or the documents would have had to have been laid out in the open in plain sight on a desk or table, readable without opening anything or moving anything.
Please show *me* where a search warrant specifying specifically identified property (firearms) allows police to open files and read through & seize personal confidential documents that were NOT IN PLAIN SIGHT and were NOT identified in the warrant.
You can't because that's long been established through many precedents that it is not a valid/legal search/seizure.
You're describing a general warrant, or warrant of attainder. There are no general warrants/warrants of attainder in the US legal system.
Again, and not trying to be a dick here, but you are wrong. Seriously. That's not the way search warrants work in the US. Even my senior-detective nephew with 20+ years in LE agrees that the police in this case simply used the questionable-in-itself search warrant for firearms to go on an illegal document-fishing expedition to out whistle-blowers.
Why do you find it necessary to so staunchly defend the illegal & immoral actions of corrupt & criminal government officials seeking to cover up evidence of their crimes?
Why bother specifying anything at all, when anything at all may be searched for if anything else is?
Because the whole search itself must be justified. There must be a specific reason to interrupt a person's life with a search. In this case, the investigators had evidence that the journalist's husband was collecting guns, when his prior conviction bans him from having firearms. The police can't search somewhere just because they feel like it, but once they have a specific reason, anything found may be used.
Sorry, that's wrong.
Probable cause to reasonably believe specific evidence of a particular crime or criminal activity exists at a certain location, sworn to by an officer of the law and examined and signed-off by a judge, justifies the search. That is separate from what the search warrant actually seeks.
There are no general warrants in the US, which is what you're describing here without calling it that.
The use of general writs/warrants by the British against American colonists prior to the Revolutionary War is the whole reason behind the inclusion of the requirement for a search warrant to specificly list and be strictly limited to the specific places to be searched and the specific items sought.
Going in on a search warrant for firearms in no way legally allows searchers to open filing cabinets and extract and open closed document folders and peruse documents within. This is how it has always been in the US. The only way this can be altered is through a Constitutional Amendment to change the 4A. No secret courts or TLAs or anyone else has the legal ability to alter it.
*IF* the documents were laying out uncovered and readable without taking any other action, then they might have a legal leg to stand on. Opening file cabinets, and especially opening document folders that no reasonable person would consider a reasonable place to search for firearms and reading/seizing the documents within does not qualify as "in plain sight". Such incidents have typically resulted in such evidence being excluded from being used against defendants and even occasionally results in criminal punishment for the violators.
Is there a difference between what you can legally be compelled to do and your duty?
I think the important question is;
Is there a difference between what you can illegally be compelled to do despite the illegality, because authorities have decided they don't effectively have any Constitutional limits to their power, and your duty?
The US is increasingly becoming a typical tin-pot authoritarian hellhole. Only with more food and wealth...for the moment. That, too, will disappear in the very near future, as well as any pretenses that people have any rights or any say at all in their government.
Yes, really. Remember Vietnam? How about Afghanistan?
If the US started making preparations to move on Antigua, I guarantee that all of a sudden, there will be Chinese ships docked and around the island, or maybe Russian ships & aircraft.
I don't think the US is ready to tangle with either China or Russia. Heck, I don't think the US is even ready to take on Brazil and/or Venezuela and their allies. Even if China and Russia stayed out, I'm sure that a number of SA nations like Brazil and/or Venezuela would stand with Antigua, and probably be supplied by China/Russia.
The US attacking Antigua over something like this just cannot end well for the US no matter what. Particularly when the US military has been reduced in size so dramatically over the last 25 years while simultaneously being stretched thin to exhaustion in multiple theaters.
Plus, it seems like the US has decided of late to purge the military ranks of many experienced & competent field-grade officers for political reasons. The US military, with the exception of it's nuclear missile capability and possibly it's air force, is a paper tiger at this stage. The Canadians could probably defeat the US in the state the US military and it's leadership is in.
Sorry as well, but the law doesn't actually follow your assumptions. As is my usual, I'll defer my explanation to The Illustrated Guide To Law [tumblr.com], written by a lawyer with far more artistic and educational talent than I have. Note the section toward the bottom, where the many criteria for excluding evidence are nicely clarified. Note especially the line that the police "don't have to ignore" evidence they find.
That still does not address the fact that a search warrant for firearms does not give carte blanche to LE to search through papers & documents, period. Papers/docs are not specified in the warrant and were not in plain sight.
Turn it around. If they had a warrant only for papers & documents, would that allow them to dig up the back yard and basement searching for guns or drugs?
Why bother specifying anything at all, when anything at all may be searched for if anything else is? It completely ignores and side-steps the specificity requirements in the 4A by redefining "specific" so broadly it becomes meaningless.
Not necessarily. If the warrant specified that a car could be searched, and the house were searched, instead, that's exceeding the scope. Looking in folders for guns is perfectly reasonable, as there are small guns [smartplanet.com] that will fit easily under or inside a stack of papers. Once the investigators are authorized to look somewhere, there is no requirement that they ignore anything else questionable that they see, including merely documents with FOUO markings.
Sorry I'm not buying it, and I don't think any honest judge would, either. No reasonable person would believe it, which is an actual legal standard. It's patently obvious the firearm search warrant was a fabricated excuse to toss the journalist's home to find the identity of whistle-blowers.
The searchers had no legal basis for searching documents, sorry. This was an illegal search & seizure carried out by the government to identify those in government who are revealing the government's illegal and un-Constitutional actions.
Those involved in this should be serving multiple decades in prison without parole, and the officials at the top should be swinging from a hangman's rope or facing a firing squad.
It's all fun & games until it's *your* turn under the jackboots.
If the government is in the habit of disappearing journalists, they're not going to fuck around with "hack your car because real life is a Die Hard movie" bullshit. They're just going to straight up kidnap them. Autonomous cars don't change anything here.
The stack of documents taken had one labeled "For Official Use Only", which means it's considered sensitive information that should not be widespread. It's not important enough to classify as a secret, but it could be a contribution to a security risk. For example, a list of known problems with military equipment is usually FOUO, because an enemy could exploit the problem before it can be fixed.
That makes the whole stack fair game for confiscation, while they make sure that the information contained within is actually safe for release (which apparently, it was, as the FOUO document was from a FOIA request).
That's lovely and all, but what right did the police have to open file-folders and look through documents in the first place if the warrant was for firearms and ammunition? Did the search warrant specify paper guns, or drawings of guns? Did they think they were in possession of some new paper-thin guns that could be hidden between sheets of paper in a file-folder?
Given the content of the warrant and the laws governing search warrants, officers serving said warrant examining ANY documents that were not laid out and readable in plain sight is a violation of 4A rights and exceeds the scope of the search warrant used.
This was nothing but illegal government armed-thuggery & theft to cover for government criminals and their criminal activities before it could be exposed to the public by journalists.
There will doubtless be considerably more safeguards built in than there are in the current drivers...
That has not been established and is far from "doubtless".
Autonomous cars will be vastly inferior, operationally-unreliable, and much less safe in the uncontrolled and chaotic real world unless & until we achieve a level of true AI indistinguishable mentally from a sentient being like a human, which is currently the state of the art at dealing with strange, unexpected, and unknown circumstances/situations and making intuitive leaps of understanding/prediction/solution. And, they must do it cheaply enough to have a "Cortana" in every autonomous vehicle.
To say that current, or even the next two generations, of autonomous vehicle tech is ready for the "rubber to meet the road" and replace manually-driven cars and trucks in the real world is pure delusional fantasy, unfortunately.
Even if it were practical to do from a tech standpoint, I'm worried about the loss of individual privacy and freedom , and the amount of control over individual lives and the variety of personal choice in how & where someone lives that people would necessarily have to surrender to make such a system work.
Think about this. Journalist plans to publish a story on some government cover-up/atrocity/corruption/etc, hops in his car (which has been reporting all his travels, revealing his informants and his intentions) and tells it to take him to his publisher's office, but it locks the doors and takes him straight to a TLA-determined destination instead where he is "disappeared". Think Michael Hastings on a national scale. Or plain old criminals/criminal gangs hack the system.
Just because something *can* be done, does not mean that it *should* be done. "Those who would sacrifice liberty for security (or safety)..."
I'm holding out hope for the Johnny Cab: "The door opened. You got in". Now *that's* what I call simple!
Yeah, but did you forget how that ride ended at the quarry? Ol' "Johnny" nearly ran Ahnold over and then exploded in a giant fireball!
Now, movie pyrotechnics, CGI effects, or other silliness aside, the fun happened after Ahnold damaged "Johnny".
What happens in highway traffic at 60-70 mph if the system sustains sudden damage and/or major malfunction, like losing all sensors, an electrical wiring system short, sudden power-loss, or having a servo suddenly lock steering to one extreme of it's range? How much trouble and expense will be put into fall-back systems?
All that doesn't even begin to address the problems with integrating autonomous and human-driven vehicles, which absolutely must be done. Banning human-driven cars/trucks/etc in the US would be ridiculously impractical from logistical, economical, and food supply perspectives, as well as being nigh-impossible to do and/or enforce, even if military force were used. The US is really, really big...like large areas where you'd be only person in a hundred miles or more in any direction, big. The US can't even control Afghanistan.
In the US there are far, far too many people living in areas where autonomous cars would not work, like places where roads changed after every good rain (some rural areas in MS, for example...been there) but where cars/trucks are still required to sustain a level of modern civilization. Many of the plains States, desert-SW States, and Rocky Mt. States have large areas where I can't imagine any of the current or even the third/fourth-gen autonomous cars being capable of replacing normal vehicles.
The poor, logical, predictable computers & software in an autonomous vehicle at this stage/level of tech would not stand a chance in hell of being able to deal successfully & safely enough with human drivers who are all the opposite things, will still be driving things like a 1970 Plymouth 440 'Cuda with factory Super Commando Six-Pack carbs and with nothing more sophisticated than electronic ignition and an AM radio for "electronics", and who are not going away.
Musk's criticisms depends on the particular type of "fuel cell" under discussion, I would think. There are many architectures & designs, some which only create small amounts of hydrogen & oxygen from electrolyzing H2O which is burned almost immediately internally which have a very low likelihood of causing/starting an explosion or fire.
There are any number of devices that could be called a "fuel cell". He may be quite correct in his criticisms of what is being currently proposed as automotive "fuel cells". That does not mean a different type/design of "fuel cell" would not be safe & practical.
It's also somewhat like asking MS's marketing their opinion on the suitability of linux as a replacement for Windows. Musk sunk his money into battery-powered-vehicle tech. You expect a favorable statement about that which could possibly threaten his investments?
Strawman much? I certainly am not an ends justify the means type, and I am vehemently against an authoritarian rule. In fact, I wasn't even voicing my opinions on the parts that someone might want to change.
It's just that your argument that you can't change one part without destroying the whole thing is complete and utter crap.
Where in my post did I say that? Better check your own strawmen before accusing others. Or sharpen your reading comprehension skills.
The point was that, using creative re-interpretations of the meanings of words and phrases and other legal/semantic sophistry INSTEAD of making changes through the established amendment process destroys the protections of ALL the amendments & provisions. What can be done to one amendment can be done to others.
I don't know how I could explain this to you in any smaller words.
"The point is, your argument works for government licensing & regulation of speech as well."
Yes, the 1st Amendment and all other amendments that include the phrase "well-regulated".
Oh, wait....
Yes, because "well regulated" are the only words or phrase that can be redefined to suit an agenda, once redefining meanings in our founding document for political expediency is allowed.
Exactly! It's like computer software! If one feature turns out to be a bad feature, you can't simply remove the one feature! You must remove them all!
You've almost got it.
Except that in your software example, it would be like making the / directory of your OS readable/writable by anyone in order to avoid the trouble of entering an administrator username & PW to make changes.
We simply can't decide that the society has evolved and that parts must change! This isn't a living document! If we change anything, we are going to fall into chaos, fascism, and communism!
The US Constitution has a provision for amending it that requires a majority of people to agree.
Apparently, you must want the ability to have a select few decide what powers the government has and what rights (if any) people have, if you reject majority-rule as a requirement for amending the Constitution by championing attempts to weaken/nullify it through extra-Constitutional means/methods as a means of "evolving".
Sounds like you're ready to "evolve" everyone straight into authoritarian rule. The ends justify the means, eh?
The constitution says nothing about gun registration. Stop making registration into something ti is not.
Also: The constitution specifically says congress has the right to regulate. It's IN the fucking amendment.
I'm sorry, but are you duly-authorized & licensed to post political opinions on public forums?
The point is, your argument works for government licensing & regulation of speech as well.
It's OK if you don't believe citizens should be able to defend themselves and their families and must be rendered victims/slaves to the first nut(s)/criminal(s) that come around with a gun, and/or is physically much stronger and/or greatly outnumbers the possibly young & female victim. If enough people agree with you in electing to enforce the victim-status of the weak/infirm/aged and the majority of peaceful & law-abiding citizens, then you can amend the US Constitution, as has been done numerous times already.
Don't people understand?? You can't weaken/nullify/sidestep one part of the Constitution you disagree with without also having an equal destructive effect on the parts you do like.
Either all of it is valid as it was written, or none of it is and the USA has become an authoritarian State where "Constitutional Rights", "Rule of Law", and/or any other limits to what government can do are meaningless and empty words & concepts.
Maybe you value the 1st Amendment highly, but sharply disagree with the 2nd Amendment's protections of personal firearm ownership. That's fine and is your right to believe, and there's a provision for changing the 2nd Amendment (or any others).
*But*, attempting to "game the system" through judicial/executive/legislative/regulatory legal sophistry (much of which reads like the "Chewbacca Defense" and/or a never-published chapter of "Animal Farm") instead of following the established amendment process, destroys all of the rights, protections, and limits set forth in the entire document as the same can be done with *them* if and whenever those in government so desire.
Slashdot Mirror
If a hostile missile is covered with mirrors will that not just reflect the beam, and a adjustable mirror can take the drone out.
Much more effective to simply locate the drone operators and kill them and their superiors if possible.
If armed drones are used domestically against civilians, kill the drone operator's and their superior's families & children as well in the most horrid & excruciating ways possible. Ideally, kill the families/children right in front of said domestic armed-drone operators & superiors before they die, and then publicly release videos of their horrific deaths as a disincentive for future domestic armed-drone use against civilians.
Strat
Is that "top-six largest US cities which happen to also have the strictest, most onerous anti-gun laws" or "top-six largest US cities and then screw the results so we only look at the ones with strict gun laws"?
I replied on impulse and from memory. I believe it was more like if you remove the gang-related gun violence stats from the 12 largest cities, many of which have some of the strictest & most onerous gun laws, the US averages for gun violence/deaths is somewhere in the middle of the international averages.
The point stands, however, that the "highest gun violence rates" claim against the US compared to international stats is disingenuous, misleading, and wrong.
Direct quotes from a United States Department of Justice report released by the Obama Administration in November of 2011. Link below.
âoeBlacks were disproportionately represented as both homicide victims and offenders. The victimization rate for blacks (27.8 per 100,000) was 6 times higher than the rate for whites (4.5 per 100,000). The offending rate for blacks (34.4 per 100,000) was almost 8 times higher than the rate for whites (4.5 per 100,000).â
âoeMales represented 77% of homicide victims and nearly 90% of offenders. The victimization rate for males (11.6 per 100,000) was 3 times higher than the rate for females (3.4 per 100,000). The offending rate for males (15.1 per 100,000) was almost 9 times higher than the rate for females (1.7 per 100,000).â
âoeApproximately a third (34%) of murder victims and almost half (49%) of the offenders were under age 25. For both victims and offenders, the rate per 100,000 peaked in the 18 to 24 year-old age group at 17.1 victims per 100,000 and 29.3 offenders per 100,000.â
http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/content/pub/pdf/htus8008.pdf
Gee, a US TV entertainment show dramatizes it's content? They're not documentaries??? /sarc
Sounds more like people not being intelligent enough to differentiate between fantasy and reality.
The propaganda I'm talking about and that I know you're well aware of despite your snark comes from the government and anti-gun groups.
Guns are like the panopticon, in that once the technology is out there neither ever will, or even can, be made to go away. The only logical action, as with the panopticon, is to make them universally available for anyone to purchase and possess who is not either underage, psychologically unstable, or a convicted criminal prohibited from owning firearms.
"An armed society is a polite society."
"An armed man is a citizen. A disarmed man is a subject."
"Firearms stand next in importance to the constitution itself. They are the American people's liberty teeth and keystone under independence ⦠from the hour the Pilgrims landed to the present day, events, occurrences and tendencies prove that to ensure peace security and happiness, the rifle and pistol are equally indispensable ⦠the very atmosphere of firearms anywhere restrains evil interference â" they deserve a place of honor with all that's good." - George Washington
Strat
Lol, when every US cop show has more shooting in the intro than an entire series of a comparable BBC show of much better quality, and you keep shooting each other at worlds highest rates, it seems spot on to me.
This is disingenuous as well as plain wrong.
If you take out the stats for inner-city drug-gang-related firearm murders/shootings in the top-six largest US cities with the strictest, most onerous anti-gun laws, the US is right in the middle of international gun crime/murder stats. Gang activity is responsible for about 48% of violent crime in most jurisdictions, and up to 90% in some. The vast majority of the US is in no way some sort of ultra-violent "wild west", as some who have swallowed the propaganda and are anti-2A/anti-US, try to paint the whole nation.
The US "war on some drugs" is overwhelmingly the most responsible for violent crime including gun violence, aggravated by government increasingly restricting the ability for law-abiding and peaceful potential victims to legally possess and carry firearms for protection, for the daily deluge of tragic drug-financed gang-related deaths in the US and the corresponding high gun-crime rates in those inner cities that push the national numbers up.
It's much easier for US politicians, as it shifts blame and attention away from their power-grabbing "war on some drugs" (and increasingly the "war on 'terrism'") and attacks on civil rights across the board, and works in favor of ever-more-intrusive and abusive government control of the people if privately-owned firearms are vilified and owners demonized instead of addressing the true causes which the government is largely responsible for in the first place.
Don't listen to what they say. It's all just propaganda and pandering to manipulate the ignorant. gullible, apathetic, & plain stupid.
Watch carefully what they do and what the results are. Otherwise, you may just find yourself in a Pink Floyd song.
"Listen son, said the man with the gun, there's room for you inside." - "Us And Them" - Dark Side Of The Moon - Pink Floyd
Strat
Yes, I agree in principle. But remember that the state is supposed to report to us. As an organization, it has the power to organize, and perform organized action. The problem in the US today is that (1) the state no longer reports to us (it reports to special interests), and (2) the size of the state has grown way beyond what we can reasonably expect to control, and beyond what can reasonably be expected to work right. I would favor returning most of the functions of the federal government back to the individual US states, where there would be more local control, and we could compare what works in one state versus another. I think it is still useful to have some level of 'altruism' provided by the individual states, at the behest of their constituents (voters). But the federal government is too large to do anything right and it is too far removed from us, and has become a huge candy store for special interests of all kinds.
Agreed. The Federal government must be drastically reduced in size, power, and cost, and that power and wealth returned to the States and to the people. Government should be as local as possible.
Strat
This a thousand times.
Thanks. I was wondering if anyone read all that and grasped the concepts I was trying to communicate.
I got on a roll getting these concepts all typed out, and was actually surprised my post ended up being so long. Ah, well. It's extremely difficult to put such large & far-reaching concepts into few words and still communicate those concepts accurately and effectively.
Strat
I agree in principle but it is not all-or-nothing. There is an appropriate balance. Keeping the right balance is hard: it is an endless tug of war among special interests of all kinds.
The idea of individual altruism in and of itself is not a bad thing.
It's when the government removes the element of individual voluntarism and turns it into a non-voluntary mandatory mass program, that altruism is turned into forced sacrifice that puts the needs of others before one's own needs, and becomes tyranny.
Altruism must be a voluntary and individual choice, not compelled under threat of force by the State.
Strat
I'm sorry you have to live in a society that demands individual responsibility or doing things for others than yourself. Maybe all you Galts can move to Belieze like Mcafee tried.
Every dictatorship is based upon altruism at it's core. It starts as "you should sacrifice for others", then morphs to "you *will* sacrifice for others", then finally moves to "you will sacrifice for others even against and beyond the best interests of you and your family".
Altruism compelled by the State is collectivism, and collectivism in it's many & various forms never works well as a pillar of government and/or society. Collectivism insures everyone is forced to the lowest common denominator and results in the only things it actually succeeds at making equal...poverty, tyranny, and suffering for all.
Strat
I get propaganda from both sides in my mailbox on a daily basis. The left's arguments appeal to one's intelligence, the right appeals to emotion.
Hmm, well, I find exactly the opposite. There was a study done by a prestigious university (Yale, IIRC) here recently that I'm too lazy to Google that shocked the Yale professor conducting the study, that revealed that TEA Party members score higher on science knowledge than the average, and above those who self-identify as Left/Democrat.
In any case, the politicians in both parties want the same things, just not the things you mentioned so much. They want to protect their incumbent position. They want to increase their own power and personal wealth by continuing to grow the power and scope of government along with the amount of wealth, capital, and resources in the economy it/they control.
They want to buy votes with entitlements and social programs, engage in gerrymandering, all along with also selling influence to insure re-election. It's not unexpected given the amount of power & wealth the government controls. Governments always tend to expand and eventually become authoritarian if unchecked.
The Left has always used appeals to emotion and hot emotional issues to advance their agendas. This is simply fact, not a judgment. Much of the differences in worldview have to do with real-world knowledge gained through experience and growing emotional maturity as people get older.
"Any man who is under 30, and is not a liberal, has no heart; and any man who is over 30, and is not a conservative, has no brains." - Winston Churchill
When I was much, much, younger and in my last years of school and the first few years after I graduated, my views were much more Left than they are now. I learned as I gained age, experience, and emotional maturity, personally observed decades of history happening, and cumulatively read and listened to more and more sources, opinions, arguments, debates, etc etc.
I've ended up as a sort of "pragmatic libertarian" out of the body of my half-century's-worth of practical real-world knowledge and experience, combined with intellectual honesty rather than emotions and good intentions.
Every dictatorship is based on altruism at it's core. It says at first that "you should sacrifice for others", but that always becomes "not only must you sacrifice for others, you must actually put others ahead of you and your family's own well-being".
Big altruistic social plans from government sound good to the un/under-educated, heavily-propagandized, economically-manipulated and intentionally impoverished masses, and that's why dictatorships and other types of tyrannies will always spring up when the population becomes uninformed/educated and apathetic enough, and the government grows large enough.
The arguments over capitalism/communism/socialism/fascism/left/right are actually irrelevant. Those are only the structures. What matters is the scale between:
Absolute Tyranny =====Total Anarchy
It's where on that scale the government is at that matters to regular people and is the right discussion to have.
It's ultimately a struggle of Authoritarians vs Libertarians (the concepts, not any party).
Those who believe that people are unable to govern themselves by mutual consent, that government should have control of everything and everyone, that everyone should be made "equal" by taking the fruits of the labors of producers by force and redistributing it to those who do not produce anything, versus those that believe that the individual should be as free as possible to succeed or fail on their own, with most government being local, and with as little central government size, scope, cost, and control as possible while still maintaining a stable society and nation.
Like distributed computer networks require much more effort to take over each individual computer node than it does to take over a network consisting of a central server and dumb terminals, where comp
Doesn't this amount to the Department of the Defense propagandizing directly to the U.S. public? What is acceptable and what is not?
I can see press conferences, announcements, and factual information, but when does it become an attempt to persuade the public?
Oh, you didn't hear? They repealed the law that forbade the US government from using it's (formerly) foreign propaganda tools and assets domestically against US citizens.
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130715/11210223804/anti-propaganda-ban-repealed-freeing-state-dept-to-direct-its-broadcasting-arm-american-citizens.shtml
http://reason.com/24-7/2013/07/15/with-ban-repealed-us-aims-propaganda-mac
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/07/17/1224321/-U-S-Government-Repeals-Ban-Opens-Floodgate-to-Mass-Agitprop-Meant-for-Domestic-Consumption
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/3043041/posts
What I find interesting is that we see publications as politically/ideologically diverse as Daily KOS and Free Republic both highly critical of this travesty.
If only people would stop looking at only what they differ on and unite on what they agree on. That's how the government and their lackeys plays people. They stir up wedge-issue shit, create a carefully-crafted narrative, and push it through the various communications medias to enrage and divide people and suck all of the oxygen out of the air for public discussion about actual meaningful oversight, reform, and accountability of government and the political class.
I guarantee that even as a white male in his mid-50s, I and a 16-YO black or Latino gang-banger in the 'hood STILL have far, far more in common and agree with each other's views far more across the board then either of us would with the average Washington D.C. politician or apparatchik, regardless of political party.
Instead of, for instance, arguing over "racism" over the Trayvon/Zimmerman incident, how about holding those responsible for the 35% black unemployment rate and the generally crap economy that had Trayvon and has many more like him out on the streets instead of working a job and raising a family, responsible for their actions or lack of, and craft some practical solutions instead of trying to start a race war.
Same thing with Chicago/Detroit gun violence...treat the cause not the symptoms. Hold the politicians responsible for the high poverty & unemployment in those cities and others around nation responsible for the crime, violence, and hopelessness it breeds instead of attempting to shift the blame to 2A rights and individual gun ownership.
Always watch the other hand. Do you really think any of those politicians and political apparatchiks give a single damn about gun deaths or racism? All any of them (outside of a couple of pariahs of the mainstream party-establishments) actually care about is securing and increasing their wealth & power by increasing and broadening every aspect of their control over YOU.
Welcome to "Serfdom, 21st-Century Style!".
Strat
I don't know, maybe if we asked them nice and provided the gasoline & torch for free? Take up a collection?
If there was a nuclear war, the last place our enemies would strike would be Washington, D.C. You don't take the enemies' own millstone from around his neck.
Strat
[citation needed]
Please, show me what law explicitly requires the police to ignore evidence they see during an otherwise-allowed search.
That's just it. The police did NOT seize evidence that was in plain sight. They actively opened filing cabinets and file folders and read through documents. That's not a search for firearms. The specific documents would have had to have been specified in the search warrant or the documents would have had to have been laid out in the open in plain sight on a desk or table, readable without opening anything or moving anything.
Please show *me* where a search warrant specifying specifically identified property (firearms) allows police to open files and read through & seize personal confidential documents that were NOT IN PLAIN SIGHT and were NOT identified in the warrant.
You can't because that's long been established through many precedents that it is not a valid/legal search/seizure.
You're describing a general warrant, or warrant of attainder. There are no general warrants/warrants of attainder in the US legal system.
Again, and not trying to be a dick here, but you are wrong. Seriously. That's not the way search warrants work in the US. Even my senior-detective nephew with 20+ years in LE agrees that the police in this case simply used the questionable-in-itself search warrant for firearms to go on an illegal document-fishing expedition to out whistle-blowers.
Why do you find it necessary to so staunchly defend the illegal & immoral actions of corrupt & criminal government officials seeking to cover up evidence of their crimes?
Strat
Sorry, that's wrong.
Probable cause to reasonably believe specific evidence of a particular crime or criminal activity exists at a certain location, sworn to by an officer of the law and examined and signed-off by a judge, justifies the search. That is separate from what the search warrant actually seeks.
There are no general warrants in the US, which is what you're describing here without calling it that.
The use of general writs/warrants by the British against American colonists prior to the Revolutionary War is the whole reason behind the inclusion of the requirement for a search warrant to specificly list and be strictly limited to the specific places to be searched and the specific items sought.
Going in on a search warrant for firearms in no way legally allows searchers to open filing cabinets and extract and open closed document folders and peruse documents within. This is how it has always been in the US. The only way this can be altered is through a Constitutional Amendment to change the 4A. No secret courts or TLAs or anyone else has the legal ability to alter it.
*IF* the documents were laying out uncovered and readable without taking any other action, then they might have a legal leg to stand on. Opening file cabinets, and especially opening document folders that no reasonable person would consider a reasonable place to search for firearms and reading/seizing the documents within does not qualify as "in plain sight". Such incidents have typically resulted in such evidence being excluded from being used against defendants and even occasionally results in criminal punishment for the violators.
Strat
Is there a difference between what you can legally be compelled to do and your duty?
I think the important question is;
Is there a difference between what you can illegally be compelled to do despite the illegality, because authorities have decided they don't effectively have any Constitutional limits to their power, and your duty?
The US is increasingly becoming a typical tin-pot authoritarian hellhole. Only with more food and wealth...for the moment. That, too, will disappear in the very near future, as well as any pretenses that people have any rights or any say at all in their government.
Strat
Yes, really. Remember Vietnam? How about Afghanistan?
If the US started making preparations to move on Antigua, I guarantee that all of a sudden, there will be Chinese ships docked and around the island, or maybe Russian ships & aircraft.
I don't think the US is ready to tangle with either China or Russia. Heck, I don't think the US is even ready to take on Brazil and/or Venezuela and their allies. Even if China and Russia stayed out, I'm sure that a number of SA nations like Brazil and/or Venezuela would stand with Antigua, and probably be supplied by China/Russia.
The US attacking Antigua over something like this just cannot end well for the US no matter what. Particularly when the US military has been reduced in size so dramatically over the last 25 years while simultaneously being stretched thin to exhaustion in multiple theaters.
Plus, it seems like the US has decided of late to purge the military ranks of many experienced & competent field-grade officers for political reasons. The US military, with the exception of it's nuclear missile capability and possibly it's air force, is a paper tiger at this stage. The Canadians could probably defeat the US in the state the US military and it's leadership is in.
Strat
Sorry as well, but the law doesn't actually follow your assumptions. As is my usual, I'll defer my explanation to The Illustrated Guide To Law [tumblr.com], written by a lawyer with far more artistic and educational talent than I have. Note the section toward the bottom, where the many criteria for excluding evidence are nicely clarified. Note especially the line that the police "don't have to ignore" evidence they find.
That still does not address the fact that a search warrant for firearms does not give carte blanche to LE to search through papers & documents, period. Papers/docs are not specified in the warrant and were not in plain sight.
Turn it around. If they had a warrant only for papers & documents, would that allow them to dig up the back yard and basement searching for guns or drugs?
Why bother specifying anything at all, when anything at all may be searched for if anything else is? It completely ignores and side-steps the specificity requirements in the 4A by redefining "specific" so broadly it becomes meaningless.
Strat
Not necessarily. If the warrant specified that a car could be searched, and the house were searched, instead, that's exceeding the scope. Looking in folders for guns is perfectly reasonable, as there are small guns [smartplanet.com] that will fit easily under or inside a stack of papers. Once the investigators are authorized to look somewhere, there is no requirement that they ignore anything else questionable that they see, including merely documents with FOUO markings.
Sorry I'm not buying it, and I don't think any honest judge would, either. No reasonable person would believe it, which is an actual legal standard. It's patently obvious the firearm search warrant was a fabricated excuse to toss the journalist's home to find the identity of whistle-blowers.
The searchers had no legal basis for searching documents, sorry. This was an illegal search & seizure carried out by the government to identify those in government who are revealing the government's illegal and un-Constitutional actions.
Those involved in this should be serving multiple decades in prison without parole, and the officials at the top should be swinging from a hangman's rope or facing a firing squad.
It's all fun & games until it's *your* turn under the jackboots.
Strat
If the government is in the habit of disappearing journalists, they're not going to fuck around with "hack your car because real life is a Die Hard movie" bullshit. They're just going to straight up kidnap them. Autonomous cars don't change anything here.
Better alert Michael Hastings...oh, wait....
Strat
The stack of documents taken had one labeled "For Official Use Only", which means it's considered sensitive information that should not be widespread. It's not important enough to classify as a secret, but it could be a contribution to a security risk. For example, a list of known problems with military equipment is usually FOUO, because an enemy could exploit the problem before it can be fixed.
That makes the whole stack fair game for confiscation, while they make sure that the information contained within is actually safe for release (which apparently, it was, as the FOUO document was from a FOIA request).
That's lovely and all, but what right did the police have to open file-folders and look through documents in the first place if the warrant was for firearms and ammunition? Did the search warrant specify paper guns, or drawings of guns? Did they think they were in possession of some new paper-thin guns that could be hidden between sheets of paper in a file-folder?
Given the content of the warrant and the laws governing search warrants, officers serving said warrant examining ANY documents that were not laid out and readable in plain sight is a violation of 4A rights and exceeds the scope of the search warrant used.
This was nothing but illegal government armed-thuggery & theft to cover for government criminals and their criminal activities before it could be exposed to the public by journalists.
Strat
There will doubtless be considerably more safeguards built in than there are in the current drivers...
That has not been established and is far from "doubtless".
Autonomous cars will be vastly inferior, operationally-unreliable, and much less safe in the uncontrolled and chaotic real world unless & until we achieve a level of true AI indistinguishable mentally from a sentient being like a human, which is currently the state of the art at dealing with strange, unexpected, and unknown circumstances/situations and making intuitive leaps of understanding/prediction/solution. And, they must do it cheaply enough to have a "Cortana" in every autonomous vehicle.
To say that current, or even the next two generations, of autonomous vehicle tech is ready for the "rubber to meet the road" and replace manually-driven cars and trucks in the real world is pure delusional fantasy, unfortunately.
Even if it were practical to do from a tech standpoint, I'm worried about the loss of individual privacy and freedom , and the amount of control over individual lives and the variety of personal choice in how & where someone lives that people would necessarily have to surrender to make such a system work.
Think about this. Journalist plans to publish a story on some government cover-up/atrocity/corruption/etc, hops in his car (which has been reporting all his travels, revealing his informants and his intentions) and tells it to take him to his publisher's office, but it locks the doors and takes him straight to a TLA-determined destination instead where he is "disappeared". Think Michael Hastings on a national scale. Or plain old criminals/criminal gangs hack the system.
Just because something *can* be done, does not mean that it *should* be done. "Those who would sacrifice liberty for security (or safety)..."
Strat
I'm holding out hope for the Johnny Cab: "The door opened. You got in". Now *that's* what I call simple!
Yeah, but did you forget how that ride ended at the quarry? Ol' "Johnny" nearly ran Ahnold over and then exploded in a giant fireball!
Now, movie pyrotechnics, CGI effects, or other silliness aside, the fun happened after Ahnold damaged "Johnny".
What happens in highway traffic at 60-70 mph if the system sustains sudden damage and/or major malfunction, like losing all sensors, an electrical wiring system short, sudden power-loss, or having a servo suddenly lock steering to one extreme of it's range? How much trouble and expense will be put into fall-back systems?
All that doesn't even begin to address the problems with integrating autonomous and human-driven vehicles, which absolutely must be done. Banning human-driven cars/trucks/etc in the US would be ridiculously impractical from logistical, economical, and food supply perspectives, as well as being nigh-impossible to do and/or enforce, even if military force were used. The US is really, really big...like large areas where you'd be only person in a hundred miles or more in any direction, big. The US can't even control Afghanistan.
In the US there are far, far too many people living in areas where autonomous cars would not work, like places where roads changed after every good rain (some rural areas in MS, for example...been there) but where cars/trucks are still required to sustain a level of modern civilization. Many of the plains States, desert-SW States, and Rocky Mt. States have large areas where I can't imagine any of the current or even the third/fourth-gen autonomous cars being capable of replacing normal vehicles.
The poor, logical, predictable computers & software in an autonomous vehicle at this stage/level of tech would not stand a chance in hell of being able to deal successfully & safely enough with human drivers who are all the opposite things, will still be driving things like a 1970 Plymouth 440 'Cuda with factory Super Commando Six-Pack carbs and with nothing more sophisticated than electronic ignition and an AM radio for "electronics", and who are not going away.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VzHxZ2f7HwY
Strat
Musk's criticisms depends on the particular type of "fuel cell" under discussion, I would think. There are many architectures & designs, some which only create small amounts of hydrogen & oxygen from electrolyzing H2O which is burned almost immediately internally which have a very low likelihood of causing/starting an explosion or fire.
There are any number of devices that could be called a "fuel cell". He may be quite correct in his criticisms of what is being currently proposed as automotive "fuel cells". That does not mean a different type/design of "fuel cell" would not be safe & practical.
It's also somewhat like asking MS's marketing their opinion on the suitability of linux as a replacement for Windows. Musk sunk his money into battery-powered-vehicle tech. You expect a favorable statement about that which could possibly threaten his investments?
Strat
Strawman much? I certainly am not an ends justify the means type, and I am vehemently against an authoritarian rule. In fact, I wasn't even voicing my opinions on the parts that someone might want to change.
It's just that your argument that you can't change one part without destroying the whole thing is complete and utter crap.
Where in my post did I say that? Better check your own strawmen before accusing others. Or sharpen your reading comprehension skills.
The point was that, using creative re-interpretations of the meanings of words and phrases and other legal/semantic sophistry INSTEAD of making changes through the established amendment process destroys the protections of ALL the amendments & provisions. What can be done to one amendment can be done to others.
I don't know how I could explain this to you in any smaller words.
Strat
"The point is, your argument works for government licensing & regulation of speech as well."
Yes, the 1st Amendment and all other amendments that include the phrase "well-regulated".
Oh, wait....
Yes, because "well regulated" are the only words or phrase that can be redefined to suit an agenda, once redefining meanings in our founding document for political expediency is allowed.
That's unpossible! /sarc
Strat
Exactly! It's like computer software! If one feature turns out to be a bad feature, you can't simply remove the one feature! You must remove them all!
You've almost got it.
Except that in your software example, it would be like making the / directory of your OS readable/writable by anyone in order to avoid the trouble of entering an administrator username & PW to make changes.
We simply can't decide that the society has evolved and that parts must change! This isn't a living document! If we change anything, we are going to fall into chaos, fascism, and communism!
The US Constitution has a provision for amending it that requires a majority of people to agree.
Apparently, you must want the ability to have a select few decide what powers the government has and what rights (if any) people have, if you reject majority-rule as a requirement for amending the Constitution by championing attempts to weaken/nullify it through extra-Constitutional means/methods as a means of "evolving".
Sounds like you're ready to "evolve" everyone straight into authoritarian rule. The ends justify the means, eh?
I'll pass, thanks.
Strat
The constitution says nothing about gun registration. Stop making registration into something ti is not.
Also:
The constitution specifically says congress has the right to regulate. It's IN the fucking amendment.
I'm sorry, but are you duly-authorized & licensed to post political opinions on public forums?
The point is, your argument works for government licensing & regulation of speech as well.
It's OK if you don't believe citizens should be able to defend themselves and their families and must be rendered victims/slaves to the first nut(s)/criminal(s) that come around with a gun, and/or is physically much stronger and/or greatly outnumbers the possibly young & female victim. If enough people agree with you in electing to enforce the victim-status of the weak/infirm/aged and the majority of peaceful & law-abiding citizens, then you can amend the US Constitution, as has been done numerous times already.
Don't people understand?? You can't weaken/nullify/sidestep one part of the Constitution you disagree with without also having an equal destructive effect on the parts you do like.
Either all of it is valid as it was written, or none of it is and the USA has become an authoritarian State where "Constitutional Rights", "Rule of Law", and/or any other limits to what government can do are meaningless and empty words & concepts.
Maybe you value the 1st Amendment highly, but sharply disagree with the 2nd Amendment's protections of personal firearm ownership. That's fine and is your right to believe, and there's a provision for changing the 2nd Amendment (or any others).
*But*, attempting to "game the system" through judicial/executive/legislative/regulatory legal sophistry (much of which reads like the "Chewbacca Defense" and/or a never-published chapter of "Animal Farm") instead of following the established amendment process, destroys all of the rights, protections, and limits set forth in the entire document as the same can be done with *them* if and whenever those in government so desire.
Strat