If you don't like their interpretation, too fucking bad. They get to say, not you.
BTW, this is, I agree, the case. This is due to usurped, illegitmate power, not any inherent notion of them being correct or even simply having legitimate power.
They are no more correct here than when they took the position that slavery was okay (Dred Scott v. Sandford, 60 U.S. 393 (1857)); that women could not vote (Minor v. Happersett, 88 U.S. 162 (1875)); that ex post facto law was acceptable (Lewis v. United States, 445 U.S. 55 (1980)); that the commerce clause's "interstate commerce" meant "intrastate commerce" (Wickard v. Filburn, 317 U.S. 111 (1942)), that corporations were entitled to rights as people are(Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, No. 08-205, 558 U.S. 310 (2010)), that taking land for commercial purposes was constitutional(Kelo v. City of New London, 545 U.S. 469 (2005)), and so on.
Or in other words, SCOTUS is often wrong, often very wrong. So you don't want to go waving your arms and spouting "because they said so" when arguing about correctness and legitimacy as is being done here. Because such behavior means you don't understand the discussion.
From the above, it is absolutely certain that "It's the law" does not have anywhere near the same meaning as "this is what is right." This is even more so if "it's the law" is actually code-speak for "SCOTUS modified the constitution's limits of government without even lip service to article V."
Um, no. There[sic] fucking job is to interpret the constitution. If you don't like their interpretation, too fucking bad. They get to say, not you.
They claim it is due to the fact that they usurped the power to do so consequent to their own self-serving "snake-eats-its-own-tail" sophist nonsense in Marbury v. Madison, 5 U.S. 137 (1803.) That you believe they have this power legitimately despite the the fact that the constitution, quite notably, does not assign them that power anywhere, doesn't make it so.
Unfortunately, the constitution does not specify what "arms" are.
Precisely. So it's just "arms." It's not just arms of yesterday, it's not just arms of today, they knew full well that arms were under development constantly and been the beneficiaries of exactly that many, many times. Yet they did not say "arms only as of up to today", and they did not say "muskets." They said arms. Aside from knowing about rapid technological change in arms, in 1791 (when the bill of rights were ratified), “arms” already included all manner of pistols, rifles, muskets, cannon, mortar, landmines, explosive and solid cannonballs, cannonballs filled with shards, frigates with multiple decks of cannon, wagons with explosives and multiple guns rigged to fire in unison, chain shot, flaming missiles soaked with pitch and other inflammable, easily spread and hard to extinguish compounds, swords, knives, bayonets, fighting canes, brass knuckles, battering rams, catapults, siege towers, glass bottles, garrotes, whips, chains, both fused and mechanically triggered explosives, striking weapons like sticks and poles and quarterstaffs and maces and war-hammers, human-powered ballistic weapons such as spears, bows, axes, arrows and crossbows I could go on for quite a bit from here, too. All of these things, and more, were in common use in warfare and self-defense at the time. Yet, knowing all that full well, all they put in the 2nd amendment was “arms.” So clearly, that’s what they meant. Arms of any kind. They didn’t say “muskets and pistols.” They said arms.
So when you encounter a law or a governmental licensing procedure that says you cannot keep, or can keep but cannot carry things like guns, swords, knives, and staffs, you know that you're looking at an illegal law, one that infringes on even the understanding the authors of the constitution had on the day of writing, should you be so delusional as to imagine they could not possibly have considered change (and not only delusional, but really kind of stupid, as article V is right there telling you they deid consider it, and covered that base very well.) Once you accept that yes, obviously they knew arms would develop, it is clear that the lack of specification of "arms up to today" is not a matter of either oversight or ignorance.
As for the rest... Likely next we'll hear from you how the first amendment means you can't pay anyone for speaking and searching can't be done without a specific rock band's consent (although I have to admit it would be amusing if the police had to sing "Cherry Pie" every time they broke into someone's home.) Here's an idea for you: actual meaning might have something to do with what role homophones play in the specific context. Seriously. It could.
On the one hand, cost of employing people in jobs that can be automated is rising. Picture this as a graphed ramp up on a plot.
On the other hand, cost of ever-higher quality automation is dropping rapidly. Picture this as a graphed ramp down on the same plot.
When those two lines cross each other, businesses will automate as soon as possible. Not may; will. Any of them that might be inclined not to, for whatever reason, will be out-competed in very short order and subsequently fail.
This can't be fixed by raising the minimum wage; it can only be accelerated, because it doesn't change the rate of the dropping automation line, but it only steepens the rate of the rising employment costs line.
So the solution cannot lie in "just raise minimum wages" approach. There has to be some way to either add costs to automation (most typically taxation is the cost suggested... which businesses generally arrange to be taken from the income of the remaining workers) or change the entire economic model to something along the lines of Basic Income. Something along the lines of that is inevitable due to inevitable technological change, but there's a lot of pain and screaming that will be done between where we are and that point. The former is right where we are already:
Walmart, for instance, is one example of severely low wage workers that are subsidized by the social safety net, which in turn is paid for by the middle class. This is what enables Walmart to keep prices low; they only pay part of the worker's survival needs. Same thing for waitresses, burger flippers and so on. Your hamburger isn't cheap if you're middle class; it's just that you pay for part of it at McDonald's, and then you pay for the rest when you pay your taxes. Very handy for McDonalds. They get to maintain the illusion that they sell cheap(er) food. Most taxpayers fail to make the connection, and continue to support McDonalds' business model by buying those burgers.
The question is how long that will be sustainable in the face of a mandated wage increase -- will people still buy a burger if, instead of $1.00 at the window and $x at tax time, it's $1.++ at the window? And what, do you imagine, will McDonald's do about it if they see this as less likely?
Pretty obviously, they will automate. People will lose their jobs. But now instead of paying for part of the burger flipper's wages at tax time, the ex-flippers are unemployed, so the social safety net must cover their entire cost of living using the income of those who remain employed. Business will continue to see to it via legislative control that they are not the ones who do the paying.
Isn't it clear that severe pain is on the way no matter what under the current economic model? I can't see a way out of it. At all.
This is why I support a change to a formal basic income. Looking at the stats and polls, though, I don't think it's likely in the near term.
No, not arguing with you. Continuing the consideration of the issue is all. Sorry I didn't make that clear, but the subject disturbs me and that narrowed my focus a bit too far; the whole "real name" trope appears to me to be based upon selfishness, a marked lack of compassion (but I repeat myself) and general social malaise.
The thing is, it doesn't really matter who they are unless some form of direct, personal retaliation is your goal. If they're being an anonymous asshole, they're still being an asshole, and internet-rhetoric-wise, you should treat them as one either way.
The down side of "real names" is multifold: People who are stalked. People who are refugees. People who have been unfairly placed in some category by a malfunctioning justice system. People who wish to stay clear of former lovers, spouses, parents, etc.
When you say "you must use your real name", these are people you are straight-up muzzling or placing in danger. And the benefit you get? At best, a toning down of rhetoric. Which does more good? Seeing to it that vulnerable people are less subject to actual threat, or our precious sensibilities being (slightly, sometimes) free of some level of assholery?
I know where I stand; and it isn't with the "real name" authoritarians.
first a brief thought experiment. Arms != Guns. Would you be OK with someone carrying a grenade launcher, fully automatic machine gun, or nuclear weapon into a public building?
It has nothing to do with whether I'd be okay with it. I'm not okay with it. But it's the law, because those are arms.
What this tells me is that the 2nd amendment needs to be changed; and I know, because I actually have studied the constitution and its genesis, that the authors provided a specific means because they were fully smart enough to intuit that things can change, and so the constitution was very likely to need to change as well. They provided a formal means to do so; and I have no doubt whatsoever that if a constitutional convention were called, and amendment to the 2A was proposed that contained the functional equivalent of this...
"The 2nd amendment is hereby modified in that "arms" shall not include or in any way imply nuclear, biological, or chemical weaponry of any type; weapons utilizing these types of destructive mechanisms may only be kept, transported, and used by the federal government"
...it would pass without much, if any, fanfare. And furthermore, that's what should have been done. The process should have been formally started on August 7th, 1945. The fact that it wasn't simply illuminates the fact that our government was wholly corrupt at the time, and has remained so ever since.
What you advocate is "something bad might happen so never mind the constitution."
The consequence of accepting your rationale is that every right protected by the constitution immediate also becomes subject to "something bad might happen so never mind the constitution."
The argument is only reasonably couched as: "The constitution needs amendment. Get after it."
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But, if we're going to go with your construction of "whatever seems safer today is okay", then perhaps my position would be to see you imprisoned or shot. Because that would make me feel safer. And you wouldn't have anything legitimate to say about it (and I wouldn't listen to you anyway.) Because the constitution is strictly advisory in your view. You lose free speech, you lose a right to a trial, you lose the right to legal representation. Or perhaps I'd just enslave you, because I could use someone to clean the catbox and mow the lawn. You could live in a pit underneath my shed. I'd probably cut your tongue out though, because your ideas are annoying and I'd just as soon you didn't spread them around.
Your "never mind the constitution" idea doesn't sound so good now, does it?
No, that was the law. Read the militia acts of 1792. "Consistently armed and prepared" is precisely what that phrase meant. They revisited the issue in those acts and laid "well regulated" out in some detail; TL;DR summary:
"every citizen, so enrolled and notified,...shall within six months thereafter, provide himself... with a musket, bayonet and belt, two spare flints, a cartridge box with 24 bullets, and a knapsack." Men owning rifles were required to provide "a powder horn, 1/4 pound of gunpowder, 20 rifle balls, a shooting pouch, and a knapsack." Some occupations were exempt, such as congressmen, stagecoach drivers, and ferrymen.
That's not the only law along those lines, either. Some of the states also had such laws prior to 1792. Another, less formal instance of what regulated actually meant at the time is revealed by considering the "regulator" clock designs invented in the early 18th century (~1715.) This epitomizes what "regulation, regulator, regulated" meant to the people at the time. It didn't mean "laws." It meant "consistent."
Article V. You should read it. Your concerns were properly and fully addressed in the constitution. It is the government that has failed to do what it is required to do to maintain the legal system, and in the course of that, they have entirely changed the actual nature of our country to fiat government focused around implementation of a direct oligarchy, where money and power control the system, and the constitution has been reduced to a historical footnote subject to abjectly sophist excuse-making.
The fault is not in any lack of foresight of the authors of the constitution. The fault is in the governance authorized by that constitution in not doing precisely what it said they should do, which absolutely includes addressing its contents when that is needed.
Anyone who suggests that the constitution should be only advisory is clearly unclear with regard to article V, and thus should be roundly ignored until properly informed, or they are supporting violation of it, in which case ignoring them should be combined with utter disdain for their ability to reason.
Which is why I don't think America should automatically hew to 200+ year old principles held by the founding fathers.
And that is precisely what article V was put into the constitution to deal with.
Unfortunately, the government is not paying anything more than vague, inconsistent lip service to any part of the constitution, and they've bewildered large portions of the population into thinking they don't have to do any more than that. Looks like you may be one of them. Sad. Welcome to the fiat oligarchy. Enjoy.
Yes, in the mid- to late- 1700s, "well regulated" meant they could shoot straight.
No, it didn't. It quite specifically meant consistently prepared in the matter of supplies and arms. You can refer refer to the milita acts of 1792 for one example of how that was meant to be applied to the milita.
tl;dr (unsurprising in this day of sound bites and 2-second video cuts): "Well regulated" was construed as: "Each member of the milita shall bring (standardized list of stuff) when called up."
US constitution says the people can keep and carry - transport - arms; that makes all individual arms licenses that have the characteristics of must-have and might-not-be-granted completely illegal.
Again, according tot law: a kitchen knife is not a weapon, regardless of size. Because the law defines it as "not a weapon".
And again, this is extremely poorly conceived. It's a weapon if it's used as a weapon. It's also arms if that is its design. That, at least, is one error our legal system does not make. The former distinction prevents murder with a deadly weapon from getting in trouble; the latter (is supposed to) prevent the government from actively disarming the people for various reasons, only one of which is laid out — in a purely explanatory way — in the constitution. Our problem is sixfold:
First, the 2nd amendment to the US constitution needs to be changed. As currently written, it is a very poor match with our technology. It literally permits the people to keep and carry nuclear weapons, biological weapons, etc., and that fact, even if the original ideas behind it were still 100% socially viable (which is at least debatable), makes it a serious problem for the people and the government.
Second, that the US congress, instead of using the legitimate path provided to them to change the law in a fully legal, socially responsible and sane manner, is acting illegally by creating law that specifically does what that amendment forbids be done, both in violation of the constitution itself, and their oaths of office.
Third, that the supreme court of the US is conspiring with these lawbreakers in the act of applying these laws to the people.
Fourth, that the executive branch of the government is conspiring with these lawbreakers in the act of applying these laws to the people.
Fifth, that the states and their subordinate governmental instances follow this lead and variously engage in most of the same forbidden actions.
Sixth, that none of this can be addressed because one of the critical flaws in our constitution is that no penalty process is provided for government actors who violate our constitution and their oaths of office. Consequently, the government can act illegally without restraint. This is precisely what they have chosen to do. The problem exists for many issues. Our legal system has become an arbitrary one instead of one structured by the constitution as a result, and our government is also an arbitrary one, acting in any way it pleases, any time it pleases. An accurate characterization is that it is operating as an unauthorized fiat oligarchy at this time.
These things tend to make those of us who are actually paying attention (a very small number of people, I assure you) quite unhappy. It also leads to these discussions of the problem, where people who are confused by the sophist rationalizations put forth by law-breaking government actors attempt to argue against the actual facts of the matter and in so doing, perpetrate the above problems.
The only (slightly) bright side is that these arguments are, without any exception, very poor arguments, and so if there is even one person who understands the actual issues, people go away from such arguments having learned something more accurate than what they arrived with. Doesn't seem to be doing us any good other than some positive character development, though.
None of this is actually evidence of you being the hit-and-run criminal. None of it.
Which is not to say that a court would find those inconclusive third hand reports, or even less than that, sufficient to toast your ass. They do that all the time. So I'm glad you have an alibi.
But it brings me right back to the same assertion: a court that might convict on the terrible quality information you describe is inevitably going to randomly dispense major injustice, destroying lives on the one hand, and letting the real criminal go without much, or even any, further inquiry. It should be fixed. The need for an alibi, as far as I'm concerned, should arise at approximately the point where your DNA matches someone else's DNA.
Wrongful convictions are not just a tragedy for the convictee... they are also a tragedy for justice and society in general, as they leave the actual miscreant free to blithely continue on where in contrast, an unclosed case does not let the matter completely disappear. And of course, for anyone else who knows you didn't do whatever it was, it completely and utterly erodes any faith they might have had in the justice system. And rightfully so. It doesn't deserve any faith at this point. Fucking thing is utterly broken.
However what I mean is best explained with german law:
Nothing in the US constitutional domain is best -- or at all -- explained by German law. Viz:
First, it defines what a weapon/arm actually is. A kitchen knife, regardless of size, is not a weapon.
And that would both be obviously wrong (go ahead and try to tell me a kitchen knife is not a weapon / arms when it is sticking out of a family member's chest subsequent to some evildoer sticking it there with intent to harm. The very idea is ludicrous.) Under US law, a weapon -- arms -- is a tool that is used to deliver injury and/or death from one person to another. If I kick you in the head, my shoe is a weapon. That's specifically the law here.
(The definition simplified is: an item deliberately designed and crafted to cause injuries and death is a weapon).
Not here. Objects, in every case, take on the nature of the task they are employed for by the intelligence that wields them. Is a car a weapon if it is intentionally used to run over a crowd of people and kill them? Of course it is. Another: Consider a.22 caliber match rifle, designed and intended for competition shooting at targets. Is it a weapon? It wasn't designed to "cause injury and/or death." But if I use it to (very accurately) put a.22 caliber bullet into your skull through your eye socket, is it now a weapon? Of course it is. If your precis of German law in this regard is correct, all you've done is demonstrate that German law is less well thought out than US law on the matter.
An important issue you need to wrap your head around is that something "being law" in no way assures that it is either correct, or well thought out. It just means it is law. And here in the US, a weapon is not a rigid category based on what its label is. It is an object used in an attempt to commit, or with the result of having committed, injury or death. So German law... wholly irrelevant here.
Regarding the quote above: either you can carry a weapon everywhere, even on property you do not own against the will of the owner, or you can't. It is as simple as that.
No, it isn't. Your ignorance of our constitution, not only of what it says, but what it is, undoes your argument.
Here are the key concepts you missed: The US constitution constrains the federal government, not the citizen. In some cases (not many) it directly constrains the state governments as well. However, specifically with regard to the bill of rights (amendments 1-10), which is where the 2nd amendment resides, the 14th amendment of the constitution formally extends those constraints to the states as well; and the states, without exception, in their turn, extend those constraints to all downstream governmental entities that legitimately derive from state law; in other words, where the bill of rights says a warrant must be obtained to execute search and/or seizure, this is true from the federal level all the way down to the most local government entities such as county, town and township. Same for keeping and carrying of arms.
The position taken in the parent to my comment was with regard to carrying arms into a government (federal, the one absolutely clearly constrained by the constitution) venue. In that venue, the government may not infringe. This says nothing about what a citizen may or may not require on their own private property, which is not a government entity derived from the constitution, directly or indirectly. The limit is on what infringement the government may apply to the citizen. Not in any way upon what limits the citizen may apply in within the realm of their own authority, which would be areas such as their home or their business. If I say you may not bring arms into my home, you will leave them at the door or you will not be allowed entrance,
So, those maximum security prisoners without guns are also getting their constitutional rights trampled on?
The 13th amendment is exquisitely clear: The government can (and does) enslave you when you become a prisoner subsequent to conviction. To the extent that it was ever unclear that those who violate the law lose their rights (as should congress and SCOTUS, clearly), the 13th brought 100% clarity to the issue. Here it is, emphasis mine:
Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.
You cannot be a slave and at the same time have any realistic rights, unless the enslaving party chooses to provide them to you. The entire idea that either constitutionally assigned or natural rights exist by default in a formal condition of slavery is ridiculous.
If you are an employee of the federal government (say, library of congress), you have no legitimate thing you can say to an armed citizen carrying arms.
The 14th amendment, we are told by SCOTUS (using wholly usurped authority, so... highly dubious, but...) mostly sorta incorporates the bill of rights into state law. For instance, just as the feds are to follow procedure for search and seizure, so are the states. Within that interpretation, the states also must not infringe, and again, carrying arms in your public library is ok. As an aside, I should point out that the constitution doesn't say that specifically, and in fact, there are several places where it explicitly reaches out and restricts the states, for instance, in the matter of creating ex post facto law, which is forbidden to both the feds and the states in no uncertain terms (and which has not stopped them, sigh.) In any case, as those things are in there, and the 2A isn't worded or generally described that way, it's time to read the 14A and think VERY carefully about what it was actually intended to do.
Now, at the state level, it is, as far as I know, uniform that towns must in turn follow state law. So your town library -- same.
That's the typical hierarchy of law.
The feds cannot infringe on those rights. It's not conditional, it's not limited, and it's not just guns, it's arms. The states? Read the 14A. Read the SCOTUS defecations about incorporation. You tell me. I sure don't know.
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State
What part of that do you think is an instruction on how governance is to be performed? Now:
the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
What part of that do you think is an instruction on governance?.........
There are two phrases there. One is a very partial explanation. It doesn't talk about hunting although that was critical at the time. It doesn't talk about self-defense, although that was absolutely an issue. It simply points out that, in the context of not having a standing army, having consistently (well regulated) armed citizens (the militia) are a good idea. FYI, more information on what a consistently armed militia means can be found in the militia acts of 1792.
The next phrase does not depend upon the first phrase in any way. It is a clear-cut, 100% unambiguous instruction: shall not infringe on the rights to keep and carry arms. Therefore, and this will sound like an echo, the government is not allowed to infringe on the right to keep and carry arms.
Clear now?
Now, just so you know, no gun nut here. Don't like the 2nd. Don't think it is a good fit with either our society or our technology. But I consider it much, much worse that the government does not consider itself bound by the constitution that actually establishes its legitimacy, and to which all three branches of government swear a solemn oath.
Next, just a point about arms: "Arms" did not mean "guns." It meant arms. If they had meant guns, they could have written that; they certainly had them. They also knew arms were under constant development, and they also didn't say "only arms as of up to yesterday", although they could have said that as well. they just said arms. So that's what they actually meant. Yesterday's arms, today's arms, tomorrow's arms. They had many types of arms; they knew more were coming. So it's arms. All of them. Just as an aside, when someone showed up to fight with an armed ship with a deck or two of cannon, they didn't say "oh wait, we meant muskets", they said "holy shit, we're going to make you an officer!"
Yeah, it's hugely open ended. It includes knives; it includes nukes. And no, it should not. Which is why our lazy-ass, out-of-control congress should get after amending it. But instead, they just make laws despite it, ignoring their oaths and ignoring the principles that SUPPOSEDLY underlie our entire way of life, and that, I think, is a far worse sin than anything the public has done with arms, including murdering people with them. But again, the first thing I'd do, if it were up to me, is fix the bill of rights, because through inaction and lazy, incompetent and unpatriotic lawmaking, its meaning has been ignored/eroded and thus is not able to serve the purposes for which it was most definitely intended.
Lastly, the constitution provides a specific method to make changes, when changes are desired by our society. That's in article V. Now I would ask you to consider the following: If the constitution was merely advisory, and not law, why would article V even be needed? Ever? If it's okay to say "yeah, whatever, we'll do it any way we want because whatever reason we think is groovy today", then WTF is the document good for at all, and importantly, what structure is the government actually based upon?
Actually, there are no limits to free speech in the constitution. The limits are all imposed by the SCOTUS, who, by the way, are not awarded the power to impose such limits by the constitution, but instead, awarded it to themselves.
As for why these are absolute, easy:
The constitution is the both the highest law in the land, and the authorizing document that defines legitimate government. Law. Now. Here's a law: You can't murder someone in cold blood. That law is not to be treated as "well, unless it's Tuesday." If, in fact, you murder someone in cold blood, you broke the law. Not maybe. Not a little bit. Not because the law is "interpreted" by some sophist moron. Nope, flat out broke the law, and that puts you in the wrong.
2A says "shall not infringe." There's nothing in the least unclear about it. Shall not. If you DO infringe, what have you done? This: You broke the law.
What we end up with at this point is excuse making; nonsense like pretending partial explanations are the equivalent of instructions, pretenses that what words meant then are what they mean now ("well regulated" and "militia" being the poster children for this.) It's sophist bullshit.
I say again: I am not fond of the 2A as it stands. IMHO, it is not a good fit with either our society or our technology as it stands. But that doesn't matter on its face, because it's the law. The constitution provides a specific procedure (article V) for when we think it needs to be changed. If the text was just advisory, they would not have done that, because it could mean whatever anyone wanted it to mean in any particular context, so there would be no use for such a procedure. But they did provide it. So clearly they did not intend it to be advisory and/or malleable based on someone's current opinion. Further, the wording is unequivocal. Personally, I would support quite a few changes in the 2A. None of them, however, would be as important as getting the government to obey the document that makes its authority legitimate.
Finally, no, I have no hope of any of this happening. Not the constitution being taken as it was intended, not the 2A being properly amended to some (any) new form, not changes to what I would consider a more appropriate form, not getting people to actually understand what the constitution is, which is the document that authorizes the government and constrains it in many ways. Today, we are basically a banana republic, legally speaking. Whatever crap congress burps out, regardless of the constitution, is what goes. And we can expect SCOTUS to rubber stamp it more often than not. Oaths be damned, laws be damned.
they told me that I couldn't bring guns into the visitors' gallery, they were violating the Constitution?
They absolutely were. "the right of the People to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed." That's the limit on government. They're ignoring the limit. It couldn't be any more obvious. You right to carry was infringed by coercive action of the federal government. How hard is that to figure out, really?
If they wanted to do this legitimately, they need to bring article V into action; that's why article V is there in the first place.
I am not particularly pro-gun (I honestly think most people are too dimwitted to carry dull sticks safely.) But in my view this "do anything we bloody want whenever we want to" game the feds constantly play is exactly the wrong way to go about anything.
That constitutionally-blind approach has bought us the inversion of the commerce clause, squashed the 4th amendment into an unrecognizable caricature of itself, engendered "free speech zones" and commercial monopoly on the airwaves, allowed blatantly ex post facto laws to be crafted and pass through SCOTUS with ease, enabled government confiscation of property for commercial purposes, engendered comprehensive infringement of the 2nd amendment, resulted in deep government involvement in the promotion of Christianity, brought us de facto double jeopardy, torture, detainment without representation, massively excessive bail, federal intrusion on rights clearly belonging to the states, and federal denial of many rights that it was commanded to understand that were retained by the people. Then there's this corporations buying politicians thing which is a product of many laws on many levels, not to mention some extreme SCOTUS sophist malfuckery. And so on.
There are days I can't decide if we're an oligarchy or a banana dictatorship with rule spread across 500 or so petty dictators. One thing I *am* sure of is that we are not a constitutional republic. That ship sailed, disappeared over the horizon, capsized, sunk, and rotted into unrecognizability on the bottom of a sea of discarded public official's oaths.
What you look like is not proof anything but what you look like. Proof of misdeed is PROOF OF MISDEED.
I'm all for safeguarding the rights of innocents (and it's quite simple, really: "I do not consent to any search, and I would like a lawyer right now")
The most important right at hand here is the right not to be imprisoned or otherwise injured for something you did not do. And no, "I want my lawyer" isn't going to get you there.
The alternative is to begin requiring a standard of evidence higher than squinting at someone and deciding you don't like their looks, which is about how it works now. Not to mention getting rid of the crazypants laws, like the drug laws, the search-within-100mi-of-the-borders laws, the ex post facto laws, and so on.
And that includes when it is complex; there are other ways to do it.
No. You can't do this by hand at all because in the work flow you are suggesting, you are either required to do as a correct operation the first time for each of the successive regional selections, or build them into distinct layers or scripted actions, and you can't conveniently, in fact trivially, modify anything/everything about those selections intuitively and interactively once they begin to interact with one another in any significant way. The effect of non-destructive change, when extended to multiple area selections computing blending set-logic/feathering/position/size as a live-and-change-anytime trivial user interface matter, is not something you can practically manage without this precise set of features, or better.
I'll put it another way: What minor subset of what Viveza can do which can be done with the types of workflow you describe in, say, an hour, Viveza can pull off in seconds, and having done so, one is in no way committed to any aspect of that unless you want to be, no matter what else you do to the image within the context of Viveza.
And in gimp if I need to base something on a calculation, there is a Perl interface and I can easily calculate and apply something by hand from a command line.
Come on. Seriously now. Are you honestly thinking that is in ANY way comparable to real-time, non-destructive manipulation, trivial mousing of many complex regions with varying effects on and combination of brightness, contrast, saturation, hue, and a whole host of other variables? Because if you are, I can't possibly take you seriously. I've been writing Perl and Python since... well heck, about since they hit first release. I LOVE scripting. I make sure there is a scripting interface in every serious application I write. I am the primary author of what remains one of the most capable and complex image manipulation systems to hit the market to date (WinImages F/x+Morph), well beyond both Gimp and Photoshop in a very large number of capabilities from layering modes to live animation of everything from area selections to every setting of every one of a myriad of effects and processing options. Broad scripting support. I've designed and implemented a far more capable (and easier to use, and easier to write, and better integrated) plugin system than Photoshop/Lightroom has to offer. And WinImages is as different from Photoshop and Gimp as Photoshop and Gimp are different from each other, and not just because it's an older application, either. In addition, I'm building a similar vertical application targeted at DSLR image processing that I already can use more effectively than either Lightroom and Aperture, both of which I own, as well as having both the Gimp and Photoshop on the system, plus others. And I'm telling you, in that context, that there is NO way you can do, via scripting, what Viveza does, with those tools. Not without actually recreating the complete set of Viveza's high level features as a holistic system and then trivially launching that from the script itself.
In my software, WinImages F/x (and my DSLR app, presently unreleased), there are layer modes that apply similar processes as to what Viveza does; Photoshop's "adjustment layers" can also do a (very) little bit of this. Once those layers are set up, you can (comparatively clumsily) shift those layer modifications around, and they wil re-blend, and they can be changed as to effect, feathering, etc., though it takes quite a few small steps to do when there's more than one of them.
In terms of smooth and easy accomplishment of what you actually want to do, Viveza destroys that model of image manipulation with its specific paradigm. Just destroys it.
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BTW, this is, I agree, the case. This is due to usurped, illegitmate power, not any inherent notion of them being correct or even simply having legitimate power.
They are no more correct here than when they took the position that slavery was okay (Dred Scott v. Sandford, 60 U.S. 393 (1857)); that women could not vote (Minor v. Happersett, 88 U.S. 162 (1875)); that ex post facto law was acceptable (Lewis v. United States, 445 U.S. 55 (1980)); that the commerce clause's "interstate commerce" meant "intrastate commerce" (Wickard v. Filburn, 317 U.S. 111 (1942)), that corporations were entitled to rights as people are(Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, No. 08-205, 558 U.S. 310 (2010)), that taking land for commercial purposes was constitutional(Kelo v. City of New London, 545 U.S. 469 (2005)), and so on.
Or in other words, SCOTUS is often wrong, often very wrong. So you don't want to go waving your arms and spouting "because they said so" when arguing about correctness and legitimacy as is being done here. Because such behavior means you don't understand the discussion.
From the above, it is absolutely certain that "It's the law" does not have anywhere near the same meaning as "this is what is right." This is even more so if "it's the law" is actually code-speak for "SCOTUS modified the constitution's limits of government without even lip service to article V."
Cheers. :)
They claim it is due to the fact that they usurped the power to do so consequent to their own self-serving "snake-eats-its-own-tail" sophist nonsense in Marbury v. Madison, 5 U.S. 137 (1803.) That you believe they have this power legitimately despite the the fact that the constitution, quite notably, does not assign them that power anywhere, doesn't make it so.
Precisely. So it's just "arms." It's not just arms of yesterday, it's not just arms of today, they knew full well that arms were under development constantly and been the beneficiaries of exactly that many, many times. Yet they did not say "arms only as of up to today", and they did not say "muskets." They said arms. Aside from knowing about rapid technological change in arms, in 1791 (when the bill of rights were ratified), “arms” already included all manner of pistols, rifles, muskets, cannon, mortar, landmines, explosive and solid cannonballs, cannonballs filled with shards, frigates with multiple decks of cannon, wagons with explosives and multiple guns rigged to fire in unison, chain shot, flaming missiles soaked with pitch and other inflammable, easily spread and hard to extinguish compounds, swords, knives, bayonets, fighting canes, brass knuckles, battering rams, catapults, siege towers, glass bottles, garrotes, whips, chains, both fused and mechanically triggered explosives, striking weapons like sticks and poles and quarterstaffs and maces and war-hammers, human-powered ballistic weapons such as spears, bows, axes, arrows and crossbows I could go on for quite a bit from here, too. All of these things, and more, were in common use in warfare and self-defense at the time. Yet, knowing all that full well, all they put in the 2nd amendment was “arms.” So clearly, that’s what they meant. Arms of any kind. They didn’t say “muskets and pistols.” They said arms.
So when you encounter a law or a governmental licensing procedure that says you cannot keep, or can keep but cannot carry things like guns, swords, knives, and staffs, you know that you're looking at an illegal law, one that infringes on even the understanding the authors of the constitution had on the day of writing, should you be so delusional as to imagine they could not possibly have considered change (and not only delusional, but really kind of stupid, as article V is right there telling you they deid consider it, and covered that base very well.) Once you accept that yes, obviously they knew arms would develop, it is clear that the lack of specification of "arms up to today" is not a matter of either oversight or ignorance.
As for the rest... Likely next we'll hear from you how the first amendment means you can't pay anyone for speaking and searching can't be done without a specific rock band's consent (although I have to admit it would be amusing if the police had to sing "Cherry Pie" every time they broke into someone's home.) Here's an idea for you: actual meaning might have something to do with what role homophones play in the specific context. Seriously. It could.
Here's the actual sitiuation.
On the one hand, cost of employing people in jobs that can be automated is rising. Picture this as a graphed ramp up on a plot.
On the other hand, cost of ever-higher quality automation is dropping rapidly. Picture this as a graphed ramp down on the same plot.
When those two lines cross each other, businesses will automate as soon as possible. Not may; will. Any of them that might be inclined not to, for whatever reason, will be out-competed in very short order and subsequently fail.
This can't be fixed by raising the minimum wage; it can only be accelerated, because it doesn't change the rate of the dropping automation line, but it only steepens the rate of the rising employment costs line.
So the solution cannot lie in "just raise minimum wages" approach. There has to be some way to either add costs to automation (most typically taxation is the cost suggested... which businesses generally arrange to be taken from the income of the remaining workers) or change the entire economic model to something along the lines of Basic Income. Something along the lines of that is inevitable due to inevitable technological change, but there's a lot of pain and screaming that will be done between where we are and that point. The former is right where we are already:
Walmart, for instance, is one example of severely low wage workers that are subsidized by the social safety net, which in turn is paid for by the middle class. This is what enables Walmart to keep prices low; they only pay part of the worker's survival needs. Same thing for waitresses, burger flippers and so on. Your hamburger isn't cheap if you're middle class; it's just that you pay for part of it at McDonald's, and then you pay for the rest when you pay your taxes. Very handy for McDonalds. They get to maintain the illusion that they sell cheap(er) food. Most taxpayers fail to make the connection, and continue to support McDonalds' business model by buying those burgers.
The question is how long that will be sustainable in the face of a mandated wage increase -- will people still buy a burger if, instead of $1.00 at the window and $x at tax time, it's $1.++ at the window? And what, do you imagine, will McDonald's do about it if they see this as less likely?
Pretty obviously, they will automate. People will lose their jobs. But now instead of paying for part of the burger flipper's wages at tax time, the ex-flippers are unemployed, so the social safety net must cover their entire cost of living using the income of those who remain employed. Business will continue to see to it via legislative control that they are not the ones who do the paying.
Isn't it clear that severe pain is on the way no matter what under the current economic model? I can't see a way out of it. At all.
This is why I support a change to a formal basic income. Looking at the stats and polls, though, I don't think it's likely in the near term.
No, not arguing with you. Continuing the consideration of the issue is all. Sorry I didn't make that clear, but the subject disturbs me and that narrowed my focus a bit too far; the whole "real name" trope appears to me to be based upon selfishness, a marked lack of compassion (but I repeat myself) and general social malaise.
The thing is, it doesn't really matter who they are unless some form of direct, personal retaliation is your goal. If they're being an anonymous asshole, they're still being an asshole, and internet-rhetoric-wise, you should treat them as one either way.
The down side of "real names" is multifold: People who are stalked. People who are refugees. People who have been unfairly placed in some category by a malfunctioning justice system. People who wish to stay clear of former lovers, spouses, parents, etc.
When you say "you must use your real name", these are people you are straight-up muzzling or placing in danger. And the benefit you get? At best, a toning down of rhetoric. Which does more good? Seeing to it that vulnerable people are less subject to actual threat, or our precious sensibilities being (slightly, sometimes) free of some level of assholery?
I know where I stand; and it isn't with the "real name" authoritarians.
"There she lusted after her lovers, whose genitals were like those of donkeys and whose emission was like that of horses." -- Ezekiel 23:20 (NIV)
I apologize. Some of the other replies in the thread have made even the relatively sane ones look worse than they are to me.
It has nothing to do with whether I'd be okay with it. I'm not okay with it. But it's the law, because those are arms.
What this tells me is that the 2nd amendment needs to be changed; and I know, because I actually have studied the constitution and its genesis, that the authors provided a specific means because they were fully smart enough to intuit that things can change, and so the constitution was very likely to need to change as well. They provided a formal means to do so; and I have no doubt whatsoever that if a constitutional convention were called, and amendment to the 2A was proposed that contained the functional equivalent of this...
"The 2nd amendment is hereby modified in that "arms" shall not include or in any way imply nuclear, biological, or chemical weaponry of any type; weapons utilizing these types of destructive mechanisms may only be kept, transported, and used by the federal government"
...it would pass without much, if any, fanfare. And furthermore, that's what should have been done. The process should have been formally started on August 7th, 1945. The fact that it wasn't simply illuminates the fact that our government was wholly corrupt at the time, and has remained so ever since.
What you advocate is "something bad might happen so never mind the constitution."
The consequence of accepting your rationale is that every right protected by the constitution immediate also becomes subject to "something bad might happen so never mind the constitution."
The argument is only reasonably couched as: "The constitution needs amendment. Get after it."
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But, if we're going to go with your construction of "whatever seems safer today is okay", then perhaps my position would be to see you imprisoned or shot. Because that would make me feel safer. And you wouldn't have anything legitimate to say about it (and I wouldn't listen to you anyway.) Because the constitution is strictly advisory in your view. You lose free speech, you lose a right to a trial, you lose the right to legal representation. Or perhaps I'd just enslave you, because I could use someone to clean the catbox and mow the lawn. You could live in a pit underneath my shed. I'd probably cut your tongue out though, because your ideas are annoying and I'd just as soon you didn't spread them around.
Your "never mind the constitution" idea doesn't sound so good now, does it?
No, that was the law. Read the militia acts of 1792. "Consistently armed and prepared" is precisely what that phrase meant. They revisited the issue in those acts and laid "well regulated" out in some detail; TL;DR summary:
That's not the only law along those lines, either. Some of the states also had such laws prior to 1792. Another, less formal instance of what regulated actually meant at the time is revealed by considering the "regulator" clock designs invented in the early 18th century (~1715.) This epitomizes what "regulation, regulator, regulated" meant to the people at the time. It didn't mean "laws." It meant "consistent."
Article V. You should read it. Your concerns were properly and fully addressed in the constitution. It is the government that has failed to do what it is required to do to maintain the legal system, and in the course of that, they have entirely changed the actual nature of our country to fiat government focused around implementation of a direct oligarchy, where money and power control the system, and the constitution has been reduced to a historical footnote subject to abjectly sophist excuse-making.
The fault is not in any lack of foresight of the authors of the constitution. The fault is in the governance authorized by that constitution in not doing precisely what it said they should do, which absolutely includes addressing its contents when that is needed.
Anyone who suggests that the constitution should be only advisory is clearly unclear with regard to article V, and thus should be roundly ignored until properly informed, or they are supporting violation of it, in which case ignoring them should be combined with utter disdain for their ability to reason.
And that is precisely what article V was put into the constitution to deal with.
Unfortunately, the government is not paying anything more than vague, inconsistent lip service to any part of the constitution, and they've bewildered large portions of the population into thinking they don't have to do any more than that. Looks like you may be one of them. Sad. Welcome to the fiat oligarchy. Enjoy.
No, it didn't. It quite specifically meant consistently prepared in the matter of supplies and arms. You can refer refer to the milita acts of 1792 for one example of how that was meant to be applied to the milita.
tl;dr (unsurprising in this day of sound bites and 2-second video cuts): "Well regulated" was construed as: "Each member of the milita shall bring (standardized list of stuff) when called up."
That assumption breaks the entire following chain of reasoning.
US constitution says the people can keep and carry - transport - arms; that makes all individual arms licenses that have the characteristics of must-have and might-not-be-granted completely illegal.
And again, this is extremely poorly conceived. It's a weapon if it's used as a weapon. It's also arms if that is its design. That, at least, is one error our legal system does not make. The former distinction prevents murder with a deadly weapon from getting in trouble; the latter (is supposed to) prevent the government from actively disarming the people for various reasons, only one of which is laid out — in a purely explanatory way — in the constitution. Our problem is sixfold:
First, the 2nd amendment to the US constitution needs to be changed. As currently written, it is a very poor match with our technology. It literally permits the people to keep and carry nuclear weapons, biological weapons, etc., and that fact, even if the original ideas behind it were still 100% socially viable (which is at least debatable), makes it a serious problem for the people and the government.
Second, that the US congress, instead of using the legitimate path provided to them to change the law in a fully legal, socially responsible and sane manner, is acting illegally by creating law that specifically does what that amendment forbids be done, both in violation of the constitution itself, and their oaths of office.
Third, that the supreme court of the US is conspiring with these lawbreakers in the act of applying these laws to the people.
Fourth, that the executive branch of the government is conspiring with these lawbreakers in the act of applying these laws to the people.
Fifth, that the states and their subordinate governmental instances follow this lead and variously engage in most of the same forbidden actions.
Sixth, that none of this can be addressed because one of the critical flaws in our constitution is that no penalty process is provided for government actors who violate our constitution and their oaths of office. Consequently, the government can act illegally without restraint. This is precisely what they have chosen to do. The problem exists for many issues. Our legal system has become an arbitrary one instead of one structured by the constitution as a result, and our government is also an arbitrary one, acting in any way it pleases, any time it pleases. An accurate characterization is that it is operating as an unauthorized fiat oligarchy at this time.
These things tend to make those of us who are actually paying attention (a very small number of people, I assure you) quite unhappy. It also leads to these discussions of the problem, where people who are confused by the sophist rationalizations put forth by law-breaking government actors attempt to argue against the actual facts of the matter and in so doing, perpetrate the above problems.
The only (slightly) bright side is that these arguments are, without any exception, very poor arguments, and so if there is even one person who understands the actual issues, people go away from such arguments having learned something more accurate than what they arrived with. Doesn't seem to be doing us any good other than some positive character development, though.
Assuming your library is a government operation, your state is obeying the letter of the actual law. The feds, as is quite often the case, are not.
It's just that simple.
Not saying the law is a good law at this point in time. But is is the law.
None of this is actually evidence of you being the hit-and-run criminal. None of it.
Which is not to say that a court would find those inconclusive third hand reports, or even less than that, sufficient to toast your ass. They do that all the time. So I'm glad you have an alibi.
But it brings me right back to the same assertion: a court that might convict on the terrible quality information you describe is inevitably going to randomly dispense major injustice, destroying lives on the one hand, and letting the real criminal go without much, or even any, further inquiry. It should be fixed. The need for an alibi, as far as I'm concerned, should arise at approximately the point where your DNA matches someone else's DNA.
Wrongful convictions are not just a tragedy for the convictee... they are also a tragedy for justice and society in general, as they leave the actual miscreant free to blithely continue on where in contrast, an unclosed case does not let the matter completely disappear. And of course, for anyone else who knows you didn't do whatever it was, it completely and utterly erodes any faith they might have had in the justice system. And rightfully so. It doesn't deserve any faith at this point. Fucking thing is utterly broken.
Nothing in the US constitutional domain is best -- or at all -- explained by German law. Viz:
And that would both be obviously wrong (go ahead and try to tell me a kitchen knife is not a weapon / arms when it is sticking out of a family member's chest subsequent to some evildoer sticking it there with intent to harm. The very idea is ludicrous.) Under US law, a weapon -- arms -- is a tool that is used to deliver injury and/or death from one person to another. If I kick you in the head, my shoe is a weapon. That's specifically the law here.
Not here. Objects, in every case, take on the nature of the task they are employed for by the intelligence that wields them. Is a car a weapon if it is intentionally used to run over a crowd of people and kill them? Of course it is. Another: Consider a .22 caliber match rifle, designed and intended for competition shooting at targets. Is it a weapon? It wasn't designed to "cause injury and/or death." But if I use it to (very accurately) put a .22 caliber bullet into your skull through your eye socket, is it now a weapon? Of course it is. If your precis of German law in this regard is correct, all you've done is demonstrate that German law is less well thought out than US law on the matter.
An important issue you need to wrap your head around is that something "being law" in no way assures that it is either correct, or well thought out. It just means it is law. And here in the US, a weapon is not a rigid category based on what its label is. It is an object used in an attempt to commit, or with the result of having committed, injury or death. So German law... wholly irrelevant here.
No, it isn't. Your ignorance of our constitution, not only of what it says, but what it is, undoes your argument.
Here are the key concepts you missed: The US constitution constrains the federal government, not the citizen. In some cases (not many) it directly constrains the state governments as well. However, specifically with regard to the bill of rights (amendments 1-10), which is where the 2nd amendment resides, the 14th amendment of the constitution formally extends those constraints to the states as well; and the states, without exception, in their turn, extend those constraints to all downstream governmental entities that legitimately derive from state law; in other words, where the bill of rights says a warrant must be obtained to execute search and/or seizure, this is true from the federal level all the way down to the most local government entities such as county, town and township. Same for keeping and carrying of arms.
The position taken in the parent to my comment was with regard to carrying arms into a government (federal, the one absolutely clearly constrained by the constitution) venue. In that venue, the government may not infringe. This says nothing about what a citizen may or may not require on their own private property, which is not a government entity derived from the constitution, directly or indirectly. The limit is on what infringement the government may apply to the citizen. Not in any way upon what limits the citizen may apply in within the realm of their own authority, which would be areas such as their home or their business. If I say you may not bring arms into my home, you will leave them at the door or you will not be allowed entrance,
The 13th amendment is exquisitely clear: The government can (and does) enslave you when you become a prisoner subsequent to conviction. To the extent that it was ever unclear that those who violate the law lose their rights (as should congress and SCOTUS, clearly), the 13th brought 100% clarity to the issue. Here it is, emphasis mine:
You cannot be a slave and at the same time have any realistic rights, unless the enslaving party chooses to provide them to you. The entire idea that either constitutionally assigned or natural rights exist by default in a formal condition of slavery is ridiculous.
If you are an employee of the federal government (say, library of congress), you have no legitimate thing you can say to an armed citizen carrying arms.
The 14th amendment, we are told by SCOTUS (using wholly usurped authority, so... highly dubious, but...) mostly sorta incorporates the bill of rights into state law. For instance, just as the feds are to follow procedure for search and seizure, so are the states. Within that interpretation, the states also must not infringe, and again, carrying arms in your public library is ok. As an aside, I should point out that the constitution doesn't say that specifically, and in fact, there are several places where it explicitly reaches out and restricts the states, for instance, in the matter of creating ex post facto law, which is forbidden to both the feds and the states in no uncertain terms (and which has not stopped them, sigh.) In any case, as those things are in there, and the 2A isn't worded or generally described that way, it's time to read the 14A and think VERY carefully about what it was actually intended to do.
Now, at the state level, it is, as far as I know, uniform that towns must in turn follow state law. So your town library -- same.
That's the typical hierarchy of law.
The feds cannot infringe on those rights. It's not conditional, it's not limited, and it's not just guns, it's arms. The states? Read the 14A. Read the SCOTUS defecations about incorporation. You tell me. I sure don't know.
What part of that do you think is an instruction on how governance is to be performed? Now:
What part of that do you think is an instruction on governance? ... ... ...
There are two phrases there. One is a very partial explanation. It doesn't talk about hunting although that was critical at the time. It doesn't talk about self-defense, although that was absolutely an issue. It simply points out that, in the context of not having a standing army, having consistently (well regulated) armed citizens (the militia) are a good idea. FYI, more information on what a consistently armed militia means can be found in the militia acts of 1792.
The next phrase does not depend upon the first phrase in any way. It is a clear-cut, 100% unambiguous instruction: shall not infringe on the rights to keep and carry arms. Therefore, and this will sound like an echo, the government is not allowed to infringe on the right to keep and carry arms.
Clear now?
Now, just so you know, no gun nut here. Don't like the 2nd. Don't think it is a good fit with either our society or our technology. But I consider it much, much worse that the government does not consider itself bound by the constitution that actually establishes its legitimacy, and to which all three branches of government swear a solemn oath.
Next, just a point about arms: "Arms" did not mean "guns." It meant arms. If they had meant guns, they could have written that; they certainly had them. They also knew arms were under constant development, and they also didn't say "only arms as of up to yesterday", although they could have said that as well. they just said arms. So that's what they actually meant. Yesterday's arms, today's arms, tomorrow's arms. They had many types of arms; they knew more were coming. So it's arms. All of them. Just as an aside, when someone showed up to fight with an armed ship with a deck or two of cannon, they didn't say "oh wait, we meant muskets", they said "holy shit, we're going to make you an officer!"
Yeah, it's hugely open ended. It includes knives; it includes nukes. And no, it should not. Which is why our lazy-ass, out-of-control congress should get after amending it. But instead, they just make laws despite it, ignoring their oaths and ignoring the principles that SUPPOSEDLY underlie our entire way of life, and that, I think, is a far worse sin than anything the public has done with arms, including murdering people with them. But again, the first thing I'd do, if it were up to me, is fix the bill of rights, because through inaction and lazy, incompetent and unpatriotic lawmaking, its meaning has been ignored/eroded and thus is not able to serve the purposes for which it was most definitely intended.
Lastly, the constitution provides a specific method to make changes, when changes are desired by our society. That's in article V. Now I would ask you to consider the following: If the constitution was merely advisory, and not law, why would article V even be needed? Ever? If it's okay to say "yeah, whatever, we'll do it any way we want because whatever reason we think is groovy today", then WTF is the document good for at all, and importantly, what structure is the government actually based upon?
Actually, there are no limits to free speech in the constitution. The limits are all imposed by the SCOTUS, who, by the way, are not awarded the power to impose such limits by the constitution, but instead, awarded it to themselves.
As for why these are absolute, easy:
The constitution is the both the highest law in the land, and the authorizing document that defines legitimate government. Law. Now. Here's a law: You can't murder someone in cold blood. That law is not to be treated as "well, unless it's Tuesday." If, in fact, you murder someone in cold blood, you broke the law. Not maybe. Not a little bit. Not because the law is "interpreted" by some sophist moron. Nope, flat out broke the law, and that puts you in the wrong.
2A says "shall not infringe." There's nothing in the least unclear about it. Shall not. If you DO infringe, what have you done? This: You broke the law.
What we end up with at this point is excuse making; nonsense like pretending partial explanations are the equivalent of instructions, pretenses that what words meant then are what they mean now ("well regulated" and "militia" being the poster children for this.) It's sophist bullshit.
I say again: I am not fond of the 2A as it stands. IMHO, it is not a good fit with either our society or our technology as it stands. But that doesn't matter on its face, because it's the law. The constitution provides a specific procedure (article V) for when we think it needs to be changed. If the text was just advisory, they would not have done that, because it could mean whatever anyone wanted it to mean in any particular context, so there would be no use for such a procedure. But they did provide it. So clearly they did not intend it to be advisory and/or malleable based on someone's current opinion. Further, the wording is unequivocal. Personally, I would support quite a few changes in the 2A. None of them, however, would be as important as getting the government to obey the document that makes its authority legitimate.
Finally, no, I have no hope of any of this happening. Not the constitution being taken as it was intended, not the 2A being properly amended to some (any) new form, not changes to what I would consider a more appropriate form, not getting people to actually understand what the constitution is, which is the document that authorizes the government and constrains it in many ways. Today, we are basically a banana republic, legally speaking. Whatever crap congress burps out, regardless of the constitution, is what goes. And we can expect SCOTUS to rubber stamp it more often than not. Oaths be damned, laws be damned.
They absolutely were. "the right of the People to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed." That's the limit on government. They're ignoring the limit. It couldn't be any more obvious. You right to carry was infringed by coercive action of the federal government. How hard is that to figure out, really?
If they wanted to do this legitimately, they need to bring article V into action; that's why article V is there in the first place.
I am not particularly pro-gun (I honestly think most people are too dimwitted to carry dull sticks safely.) But in my view this "do anything we bloody want whenever we want to" game the feds constantly play is exactly the wrong way to go about anything.
That constitutionally-blind approach has bought us the inversion of the commerce clause, squashed the 4th amendment into an unrecognizable caricature of itself, engendered "free speech zones" and commercial monopoly on the airwaves, allowed blatantly ex post facto laws to be crafted and pass through SCOTUS with ease, enabled government confiscation of property for commercial purposes, engendered comprehensive infringement of the 2nd amendment, resulted in deep government involvement in the promotion of Christianity, brought us de facto double jeopardy, torture, detainment without representation, massively excessive bail, federal intrusion on rights clearly belonging to the states, and federal denial of many rights that it was commanded to understand that were retained by the people. Then there's this corporations buying politicians thing which is a product of many laws on many levels, not to mention some extreme SCOTUS sophist malfuckery. And so on.
There are days I can't decide if we're an oligarchy or a banana dictatorship with rule spread across 500 or so petty dictators. One thing I *am* sure of is that we are not a constitutional republic. That ship sailed, disappeared over the horizon, capsized, sunk, and rotted into unrecognizability on the bottom of a sea of discarded public official's oaths.
What you look like is not proof anything but what you look like. Proof of misdeed is PROOF OF MISDEED.
The most important right at hand here is the right not to be imprisoned or otherwise injured for something you did not do. And no, "I want my lawyer" isn't going to get you there.
The alternative is to begin requiring a standard of evidence higher than squinting at someone and deciding you don't like their looks, which is about how it works now. Not to mention getting rid of the crazypants laws, like the drug laws, the search-within-100mi-of-the-borders laws, the ex post facto laws, and so on.
That's Obama, of course.
No. You can't do this by hand at all because in the work flow you are suggesting, you are either required to do as a correct operation the first time for each of the successive regional selections, or build them into distinct layers or scripted actions, and you can't conveniently, in fact trivially, modify anything/everything about those selections intuitively and interactively once they begin to interact with one another in any significant way. The effect of non-destructive change, when extended to multiple area selections computing blending set-logic/feathering/position/size as a live-and-change-anytime trivial user interface matter, is not something you can practically manage without this precise set of features, or better.
I'll put it another way: What minor subset of what Viveza can do which can be done with the types of workflow you describe in, say, an hour, Viveza can pull off in seconds, and having done so, one is in no way committed to any aspect of that unless you want to be, no matter what else you do to the image within the context of Viveza.
Come on. Seriously now. Are you honestly thinking that is in ANY way comparable to real-time, non-destructive manipulation, trivial mousing of many complex regions with varying effects on and combination of brightness, contrast, saturation, hue, and a whole host of other variables? Because if you are, I can't possibly take you seriously. I've been writing Perl and Python since... well heck, about since they hit first release. I LOVE scripting. I make sure there is a scripting interface in every serious application I write. I am the primary author of what remains one of the most capable and complex image manipulation systems to hit the market to date (WinImages F/x+Morph), well beyond both Gimp and Photoshop in a very large number of capabilities from layering modes to live animation of everything from area selections to every setting of every one of a myriad of effects and processing options. Broad scripting support. I've designed and implemented a far more capable (and easier to use, and easier to write, and better integrated) plugin system than Photoshop/Lightroom has to offer. And WinImages is as different from Photoshop and Gimp as Photoshop and Gimp are different from each other, and not just because it's an older application, either. In addition, I'm building a similar vertical application targeted at DSLR image processing that I already can use more effectively than either Lightroom and Aperture, both of which I own, as well as having both the Gimp and Photoshop on the system, plus others. And I'm telling you, in that context, that there is NO way you can do, via scripting, what Viveza does, with those tools. Not without actually recreating the complete set of Viveza's high level features as a holistic system and then trivially launching that from the script itself.
In my software, WinImages F/x (and my DSLR app, presently unreleased), there are layer modes that apply similar processes as to what Viveza does; Photoshop's "adjustment layers" can also do a (very) little bit of this. Once those layers are set up, you can (comparatively clumsily) shift those layer modifications around, and they wil re-blend, and they can be changed as to effect, feathering, etc., though it takes quite a few small steps to do when there's more than one of them.
In terms of smooth and easy accomplishment of what you actually want to do, Viveza destroys that model of image manipulation with its specific paradigm. Just destroys it.
Happiness and c