So let's figure out a real problem, why you can't admit it is a poorly written choice of expression?
Your strange obsession with pretending you don't understand that the standard use of English was a wee bit different two centuries ago... what's the problem, exactly? How am I being a "coward" by stopping to give you a remedial explanation on how to parse a sentence that you're saying you think is too tricky for you to understand?
Have you considered talking to a professional about your inability to communicate in a rational, calm manner?
Regardless, if you think the specific list of jurists that Trump has already published is LESS oriented around preservation of the constitution than the sort of people that Hillary Clinton supports for those jobs, then you're simply delusional.
Wait, wait, you're pretending that that Amendment is in plainly written English? Fuck no it isn't. Not even for the time. And it doesn't even begin to cover the necessary sentiments. It is ultimately inadequate.
How are you even keeping up with these threads if you can't read plain English? The amendment reads: "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." Let's try to figure out which words, clauses, punctuation, and whatnot you are unable to follow.
"being necessary to the security of a free State" is a clarifying, supporting clause that makes it clear the framers understand the reason that a standing military/militia is necessary (to protect freedom - as always, the emphasis of the Bill of Rights is on individual liberty and restraint of the government). Are you having any trouble seeing how that clause modifies/clarifies the leading clause? No? Good.
"the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." Means, just like the first clause and its modifier, exactly what it says. There are no games, no strange considerations for you to misinterpret. As used throughout the Constitution, "the people" refers to each of us - you and me, citizens. Individuals. "The right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." That is the most important part, because it says what the government may not do to the people, just like the First Amendment says what the government may not do to the people. The first half of the amendment is there to provide what the framers considered a pre-emptive rebuttal against people who would seek to get around their prohibition against government infringement by claiming that the later establishment of a standing military would somehow negate it.
As for the rest of your rambling, vitriolic ad hominem rant, there's really no point replying to it.
Fair enough - typed the whole thing in a hurry and without editing, not my preferred method. Yes, the states have powers that aren't specifically set aside for the feds. One of the reasons we really, really need to pay attention to the upcoming election's likely fallout in SCOTUS nominations is that things like states' rights are in a terrible state (pardon the pun). Things like abuse of the Commerce Clause, or Hillary Clinton's promise to pursue making manufacturers liable when criminals use their products... there are real things at stake here, and it ain't the personalities of the candidates. The SCOTUS is the single most important thing, period. We know the list from which Trump will name members, and we know the types of people Clinton praises for those seats. That topic is a show-stopper for anybody familiar with history and the constitution.
The failure to state it properly has caused a great deal of harm
No, the people who skew, ideologically, towards an ever-expanding tyrannical nanny state choose to pretend they can't parse plainly written English or that reading the lengthier, plain-English supporting material from dozens of contemporary people (including those who wrote that simple sentence that you're pretending you can't read) are using the theater of that phony misunderstanding to try to shape the relationship between the citizens and government that work for them.
you should get over your psychosis for originalism and stand by something today
Let me guess - you think the First Amendment, as originally written by those who wrote it, is also too quaint, and should be done away with by something a little more "today." No? Yes? Which part of that amendment do you consider no longer applicable because it was written before you were born? Be specific.
That would be true if gun-toting Americans obeyed the constitution and learnt military discipline and tactics, which is what the second amendment really means.
The Second Amendment means no such thing and says no such thing. It says that even if we DO have a standing military, that doesn't mean the existence of such can allow the government to infringe on the people's rights to keep and bear arms. As mentioned above, the people wrote the amendment couldn't have been clearer on the subject. The problem here is that you don't know how to read - history, or the amendment itself. You also completely fail to understand the structure of the constitution. That Bill of Rights is all about preventing the government from interfering with your natural rights - not establishing rules about who should be able to own a printing press, or a gun.
Those 2nd Amendment supporters who think a cupboard full of guns will protect them from "evil gubbermint" are seriously deluded.
It doesn't matter what you or they think about that particular topic. That's not what the Second Amendment is about. If you want to keep and bear arms for your own self defense (because the government was NOT structured to keep armed people at your side 24x7 to protect you from harm), or for hunting, or for sport - you have the right to do so, and the founders considered (very wisely) that there would always be people like you coming along saying that they know better when or whether you deserve protection, and use that as an excuse to take that personal right away. They were right - here you are, preaching exactly that.
The current crop of supporters blathering on about "home defense" don't have such rights.
Let's break this down, shall we? If I break into your house and attack you, you don't have the right to try to prevent me from hurting you? Is that REALLY how you think? Be specific.
I guess I am not totally convinced. Each one of the quotes to me seem to be quotes in support of bodies like the 13 state militias
If that's how it seems to you, it's because you're still deliberately not reading the words in front of you. There's a reason I saved the last two quotes for last, because they're so succinct. Especially important: while the founders considered states' rights to be vital (another area in which current politics has hugely over-reached), there were some areas considered to sacrosanct that it was worth building nation-wide, at-all-levels-of-government prohibitions against government infringement into the nation's charter. By definition, things cast in that way supersede activity at the state level. Those who were chartering and ratifying the state constitutions were doing so in keeping with the federal constitution - those things had to be in sync. Where they were not, that had to reconciled by either convincing all of the states to see (and thus amend) the federal constitution to suit, or by amending (or differently authoring) the state constitutions. There's zero wiggle room. So when you see authors of the state constitutions (see Henry, in Virginia, for example) being crystal clear about echoing the federal constitution's protection of natural individual rights to self defense through the keeping and bearing of arms, you're getting another view into the very well understood purpose of the second amendment.
When Adams (one of the authors of the Second Amendment) says "The Constitution shall never be construed to prevent the people of the United States who are peaceable citizens from keeping their own arms," I trust you're seeing his reference to 'the United States' (not just Massachusetts), and 'citizens' (not some collective) and 'their own' in reference to peaceable citizens. He's not talking about military units - the entire notion of 'peaceable' applies to those who are not criminals. Adams was a talented and very literal lawyer. He didn't choose those words casually, and if he'd meant to say that he was referring to military units he'd have said so in no uncertain terms. He served in more than one trial where the issue at hand involved friction between military and private people. This is not an area about which he'd have been in any way vague.
Why did the house adopt the wording “A well regulated militia, composed of the body of the people, being the best security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed, but no one religiously scrupulous of bearing arms, shall be compelled to render military service in person.”
Because they were REALLY trying to avoid the existence of a long-term, standing army. The prevailing wish among the founders was that there would never be a standing, professional military. They'd had too much of that from the British, and saw what having a life-long military aristocracy did. So they preferred instead to consider the entire nation to be the military, if and when the need should ever arise (think: the draft), though they left room for people like Quakers to opt out of such activity if they had real convictions along those lines. Because they considered a standing army to be anathema, they wanted it to be VERY clear that the only way to have a society that could, should the need arise, be capable with their arms was: to make sure that nobody in government could ever prevent people from owning them. Notice the complete lack of language requiring people to own them, or dictating any sort of skill or militia membership rules... because that's not what they're talking about. They're simply saying: "Beyond the natural right to own the tools of your own self defense, we have a vested interest in making sure that the government never infringes on citizens' keeping and bearing of arms... because if the shit hits the fan, we want a society that already knows what the
Right. The journal (through cherry picking) failing to find Madison explicitly stating the words "personal" or "individual" is an indication of how going-without-saying he and the rest of the framers considered the matter to be, which is of course why the amendment is worded the way it is. He and the other founders structured that simple phrase in a way (through the contemporary language of the time) that couldn't be clearer: It's obvious we're going to need a military, but the right of the people to keep and bear arms can't be screwed with. And before you go off saying "the people" means "the military" or something along those lines, refresh yourself on how the phrase "the people" is used throughout the rest of the founding documents that - by their very nature - are all about describing the things the government cannot do to the people, as individuals.
But if you still don't have the energy to use Google, here are some of the founders talking about how they see the matter - as both the federal, and individual state constitutions were being ratified and as they talked with others on the subject. These guys talked specifically and frequently - in correspondence, in the Federalist Papers, and before congress and their state legislatures - in terms that aren't in any way vague. People with an agenda to revise history and strip away your constitutionally protected rights will, of course, pretend they aren't good enough researchers to read what these men had to say both personally and officially. For example:
"If circumstances should at any time oblige the government to form an army of any magnitude that army can never be formidable to the liberties of the people while there is a large body of citizens, little, if at all, inferior to them in discipline and the use of arms, who stand ready to defend their own rights and those of their fellow-citizens. This appears to me the only substitute that can be devised for a standing army, and the best possible security against it, if it should exist."
- Alexander Hamilton, Federalist No. 28, January 10, 1788
"Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect everyone who approaches that jewel. Unfortunately, nothing will preserve it but downright force. Whenever you give up that force, you are ruined.... The great object is that every man be armed. Everyone who is able might have a gun."
- Patrick Henry, Speech to the Virginia Ratifying Convention, June 5, 1778
"Before a standing army can rule, the people must be disarmed, as they are in almost every country in Europe. The supreme power in America cannot enforce unjust laws by the sword; because the whole body of the people are armed, and constitute a force superior to any band of regular troops."
- Noah Webster, An Examination of the Leading Principles of the Federal Constitution, October 10, 1787
"To disarm the people...[i]s the most effectual way to enslave them."
- George Mason, referencing advice given to the British Parliament by Pennsylvania governor Sir William Keith, The Debates in the Several State Conventions on the Adoption of the Federal Constitution, June 14, 1788
"The Constitution of most of our states (and of the United States) assert that all power is inherent in the people; that they may exercise it by themselves; that it is their right and duty to be at all times armed."
- Thomas Jefferson, letter to to John Cartwright, 5 June 1824
"A strong body makes the mind strong. As to the species of exercises, I advise the gun. While this gives moderate exercise to the body, it gives boldness, enterprise and independence to the mind. Games played with the ball, and others of that nature, are too violent for the body and stamp no character on the mind. Let your gun therefore be your constant companion of your walks." - Thomas Jefferson, letter to Peter Carr, August 19, 1785
There's also the fact that the mere concept of the 2nd Amendment being an individual right is a recent invention basically paid for by the weapons industry
No. The Second Amendment was proposed, talked about, debated, and eventually ratified by people who EXACTLY considered it to be about protecting (not creating - you don understand how the Constitution works, don't you?) the individual right to keep and bear arms. There are mountains of letters, transcripts, and explicit explanations from those who created the Bill of Rights to help you understand their thinking about this, as well as other familiar ones (like the freedom to speak, assemble, etc).
The colonists had just lived through the Crown's tyranny in many forms - not least of which was the stationing of soldiers in people's homes and the confiscation of their personal weapons. The official British line was, "We have a well ordered military presence in the colonies, and they are all that's needed to maintain peace and your safety..." and that was the excuse for going farm-to-farm, house-to-house, and confiscating weapons. Of course people who didn't respect British law might still hide them, and of course criminals were thrilled that the population was disarmed, since they personally were not.
The founders considered that entire scenario unacceptable for many reasons. So much so that they went out of their way to explicitly prevent their new government from ever infringing on that personal liberty again (just like they also said that the government could not infringe on freedom of expression or assembly). Much to many of the founders' annoyance, they recognized that there would be a need for a standing military of some sort - at the very least, at the local "militia" level. The Second Amendment doesn't establish a military, or speak to one's qualifications to be in it, or have anything to say about how it is funded or armed... what it does say, since you obviously can't parse the period language, is essentially this: "Since it looks like we're going to have to have a military at some level, the fact that there will be armed, professionally trained people IN that military does not give anyone in the government the excuse to infringe on the personal right to keep and bear arms."
That was the entire point of the amendment! They didn't want the local rich guy who was funding the county's militia to say, "Hey, I've got twenty guys with some training and muskets, so I think it's best if everyone else in the county is stripped of their weapons - why would they need them?" But just like today, you can't have armed people from the government everywhere you go and in your house to defend you at every moment. Law enforcement comes AFTER you have a need for self defense. The founders didn't have to be geniuses on this topic, just simple rational thinkers.
All of this was and has been obvious since the country was chartered. For a couple hundred years, it went without saying that this was the premise and the reality of the Second Amendment. But more recently, of course, totalitarian-minded nanny-state types have been anxious to make people ever more dependent on the government, since that dependency buys them more power and a guaranteed career in being indispensable and in charge of everyone else. Routinely indicating that things like private gun ownership are horrible, and only more government, more intrusively involved in every day life could possibly be the rational replacement for things like the capability for self defense - that's just part of the larger lefty world view and movement towards a larger, sprawling, ever more powerful government.
Yes, the founders did ALSO talk about the people's right (indeed, obligation) to overthrow a government that has chosen to trash the constitution. But we've never been in that situation to the degree that the pendulum couldn't be pushed the other way through the ballot box. Millions of people who don't like the candidate they'r
How about having done the easy work we could have done in the first place? Long before Russia realized the coast was clear for them to expand militarily into the area, and long before Iran established ever more robust supply lines for the people they back in the slaughter there, the circumstances were cast in stone by Assad using things like barrel bombs and chemical seapons dropped from helicopters onto protesters and into city areas where support for his removal was strong. Half a day's air strikes would have completely removed Assad's air power from the equation. Which you know. But you're trying to give cover to the military commander who went on about red lines not being crossed, but then allowed Assad to maintain complete air control of the area in order to kill untold thousands and flush millions into neighboring countries. Yes, now it's too late for that - Obama guaranteed that, and Clinton helped.
I know, you're trying SO hard to miss the point. Which was a rebuttal of the earlier poster's assertion that the party he opposes is all about the worst things he doesn't like about a sub-set of one faction of that party. So the question is, why is it unreasonable to say that the party he supports is all about the worst things we see in sub-sets of factions that support his party? We DO have video of activist marchers carrying signs and chanting about the need to kill police. And we have people who praise those groups actually doing things like shooting down half a dozen cops in the street specifically to support that agenda. But wait, you say, that's not representative of the Democrat party. Right. But it's OK to disingenuously use a different standard when talking about Republicans, right? Sure, of course.
the left has been working hard to protect _everybody's_ rights
Everyone except the people with whom they disagree. For them, they work hard to shout down and force college campuses to preemptively pull the plug on speeches deemed insufficiently lefty. They work hard to support groups that chant in the street about their desire to see police officers killed. The left works hard to promote the idea that the government should ban or otherwise shut up web sites that they consider "unfair" because... they're very popular with millions of people who don't tow the lefty line.
And I wouldn't call that guy a radical extremist
Right. His repeated pronouncements about his embrace of a mass-murdering, medieval-minded theocratic terror organization that likes to burn people alive and slaughter people because of their heritage - no, nothing radical there.
I'd call him mentally ill and very likely a closet homosexual (he'd been hanging around the bar a bit too much to just be 'casing' the joint, they recognized him).
All of the early ruminating about his frequenting gay chat/dating sites have been proven to be nothing but rumor. Never happened. He cased the bar more than once, as many terrorists do before killing large numbers of people in soft target locations. Fits the usual pattern perfectly.
Everybody gets protected.
As long as they swear fealty to lefty ideology, you mean. Otherwise, they are to be silenced, targeted by the IRS, banned from campus, attacked on the street outside their political events, that sort of thing. Because nobody gets left behind when it comes to vitriol from the left.
Nobody thrown under the bus.
Unless they've been doing work for the Clintons, in which case they DO get thrown under the bus, and the bus also backs over them a couple of times to be sure.
And that includes Muslims.
Unless they are Muslims who are being attacked with chemical weapons, bombed by Russia, and the like. They get left behind. Because even though red lines are crossed, what's a few hundred thousand dead Muslims and a few million of them running for their lives into Europe, right? That's just another way of showing support for them. Tough love and whatnot.
Why should I believe that the alt-right doesn't want to stone gays to death in the street?
What if they do? They aren't in charge. Should we be concerned that "the Democrats" want to kill all the police officers, just because a fringe group of movements associated with lefty politics shouts about wanting that?
How about Hillary? She's best buds and on the take (in the millions of dollars) from people who like to see gays thrown from rooftops to their deaths, burned alive, and other hideous fates. Clearly, the Democrats support killing gays, because their leader and the person they think best embodies their values happily associates with and is handsomely paid by people who openly call for and follow through with the routine killing of LBGTQEVERYTHINGELSE. Why aren't you scared of what's happening in Europe? Waves of immigrants from that part of the world are bringing with them an embrace of the very medieval world view that brings about the actual thing you say you fear - and it's the Democrats who are insisting that we aren't doing nearly enough to bring in enough of that culture to the US.
See Ferguson or Baltimore just as two easy examples. You can't pretend you're unaware of these events, or of the fact that most of the arrests made turn out to be of people who don't even live in the effected areas.
Saying that first amendment rights shouldn't apply to non-liberals.
See every recent discussion, always started on the left, about doing things like bringing the "Fairness Doctrine" back from its well-earned, unconstitutional grave. See virtually every college campus, especially when progressive protesters threaten to disrupt speeches by people like Condi Rice... and school administrations agree with them, cancelling such gatherings in order to appease the angry liberals. There are so many examples of this sort of thing that you can't possibly be unaware of them.
Saying that Assange should be shot.
Take or leave reports of Hillary Clinton doing a "Will nobody rid me of this troublesome priest?" and talking (while in office) about "droning" Assange. But for a more on-video example of a typical self-professed arch liberal pundit, look to people like Bob Beckel, famous for saying things like, "A dead man can’t leak stuff. This guy’s a traitor, he’s treasonous, and he has broken every law of the United States. And I’m not for the death penalty, so... there’s only one way to do it: illegally shoot the son of a bitch."
Liberals calling for police to be killed.
You're kidding, right? We've seen whole marches full of people chanting about "killing pigs" and that old favorite, "What do we want? Dead cops! When do we want them? Now!" Who? Black Lives Matter gatherings. BLM is a darling of the progressive left, and local franchises thereof receive substantial support from groups like OSF (famously liberal activist George Soros' channel for putting cash into such movements and events).
The point, of course, is that the poster above is asserting that some fringe element he especially dislikes is the very definition of the wider party he wants to see defeated. Pretending that the party he DOES like doesn't have, dragging around with it, people who are every bit as bad or worse, including some that literally violent or at least enthusiastic about violence... well, that's just pretending. And no, most people don't think that defines the Democrat party, per se.
So you're saying that the "alt-right" you find so disturbing IS the Republican party, but the hardcore lefties who literally attack Trump supporters in the street, say they hate him as they burn down parts of their own cities, screech that the First Amendment's protections shouldn't apply to non-liberals, and who think that (for example) Julian Assange should be shot for endangering Hillary Clinton's campaign... those are all people who ARE the Democrat party, right? People who align with Hillary Clinton but who actually call for police to be killed and for the tearing down of any privately owned businesses... that's what Democrats stand for, and thus why you should vote for Clinton, right? Because you like those ideas?
Or is there a chance that you're being a totally disingenuous hypocrite in using one fraction of one group to define the whole, but carefully avoiding that exact same standard when it comes to the person you like?
Why wouldn't he be? Whether or not Trump personally would enter into a gay marriage, he was in public talking plainly about how happy he was for (his casual acquaintance) Elton John to have married his long-time partner, and that people should be cool with it. At the same time, Hillary Clinton was voicing her support for her husband's signing of a law to prevent such things, and Barack Obama was sticking with his "marriage should be between one man and one woman" position. Trump has created more jobs jumped-on by gay people (in the entertainment, pagent, and hospitality businesses) that Hillary Clinton ever could or would. Why shouldn't a gay person support him? Are gay people supposed to like illegal immigration, higher taxes, more regulation, feckless foreign policy, and a nanny state that makes class and racial tensions WORSE instead of better? Please explain.
There's a qualified one now, even if she isn't eye candy.
Who are you referring to? The Green candidate? The "doctor" who is anti-science? No, she's not qualified. Non-scientists can be forgiven for not understanding science (though not forgiven for putting anti-science people in science-related roles). But professional scientists who rail against science are exhibiting a world view that immediately disqualifies them from office.
The most obvious thing that's wrong with Team SJW is that they do things like calling the pointing out of facts "misogyny." Finally, enough people are getting sick of that Orwellian bit of PC nonsense, and millions of people are preparing to vote for someone they don't particularly like, just so they can deny a vote the kind of person who practices and preaches that sort of deliberate BS in pursuit of political power.
No, pointing out that it's foolish to vote for a corrupt, incompetent, career-long liar who has only evaded prison because of her political connections because she is a woman is NOT misogyny. But calling someone who makes that observation a misogynist is an example of the juvenile, delusional mindset and behavior that has millions and millions of people taking steps to show how sick they are of it. Let me guess, you consider that half of your fellow citizens to be irredeemably deplorable, right? Yeah, figured.
In my experience people who blame the victim of a crime are often either committing that crime themselves, or think that they may commit it (perhaps accidentally) in the future.
In my experience, people who think that mentioning how often elderly people with dementia can be vulnerable to these kinds of scams is an example of blaming the victim as opposed to citing an example of how the GP's reference to wanting to punish the victims for their stupidity is misguided... are not paying attention to the conversation. And that's being generous.
This says more about our insane tax code and US citizens' absolute, paralyzing fear of the IRS and its capricious life-wrecking ways than it does about the fact that there are such things as con men taking advantage of it.
Slashdot Mirror
So let's figure out a real problem, why you can't admit it is a poorly written choice of expression?
Your strange obsession with pretending you don't understand that the standard use of English was a wee bit different two centuries ago ... what's the problem, exactly? How am I being a "coward" by stopping to give you a remedial explanation on how to parse a sentence that you're saying you think is too tricky for you to understand?
Have you considered talking to a professional about your inability to communicate in a rational, calm manner?
Regardless, if you think the specific list of jurists that Trump has already published is LESS oriented around preservation of the constitution than the sort of people that Hillary Clinton supports for those jobs, then you're simply delusional.
Wait, wait, you're pretending that that Amendment is in plainly written English? Fuck no it isn't. Not even for the time. And it doesn't even begin to cover the necessary sentiments. It is ultimately inadequate.
How are you even keeping up with these threads if you can't read plain English? The amendment reads: "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." Let's try to figure out which words, clauses, punctuation, and whatnot you are unable to follow.
"being necessary to the security of a free State" is a clarifying, supporting clause that makes it clear the framers understand the reason that a standing military/militia is necessary (to protect freedom - as always, the emphasis of the Bill of Rights is on individual liberty and restraint of the government). Are you having any trouble seeing how that clause modifies/clarifies the leading clause? No? Good.
"the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." Means, just like the first clause and its modifier, exactly what it says. There are no games, no strange considerations for you to misinterpret. As used throughout the Constitution, "the people" refers to each of us - you and me, citizens. Individuals. "The right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." That is the most important part, because it says what the government may not do to the people, just like the First Amendment says what the government may not do to the people. The first half of the amendment is there to provide what the framers considered a pre-emptive rebuttal against people who would seek to get around their prohibition against government infringement by claiming that the later establishment of a standing military would somehow negate it.
As for the rest of your rambling, vitriolic ad hominem rant, there's really no point replying to it.
Fair enough - typed the whole thing in a hurry and without editing, not my preferred method. Yes, the states have powers that aren't specifically set aside for the feds. One of the reasons we really, really need to pay attention to the upcoming election's likely fallout in SCOTUS nominations is that things like states' rights are in a terrible state (pardon the pun). Things like abuse of the Commerce Clause, or Hillary Clinton's promise to pursue making manufacturers liable when criminals use their products ... there are real things at stake here, and it ain't the personalities of the candidates. The SCOTUS is the single most important thing, period. We know the list from which Trump will name members, and we know the types of people Clinton praises for those seats. That topic is a show-stopper for anybody familiar with history and the constitution.
The failure to state it properly has caused a great deal of harm
No, the people who skew, ideologically, towards an ever-expanding tyrannical nanny state choose to pretend they can't parse plainly written English or that reading the lengthier, plain-English supporting material from dozens of contemporary people (including those who wrote that simple sentence that you're pretending you can't read) are using the theater of that phony misunderstanding to try to shape the relationship between the citizens and government that work for them.
you should get over your psychosis for originalism and stand by something today
Let me guess - you think the First Amendment, as originally written by those who wrote it, is also too quaint, and should be done away with by something a little more "today." No? Yes? Which part of that amendment do you consider no longer applicable because it was written before you were born? Be specific.
That would be true if gun-toting Americans obeyed the constitution and learnt military discipline and tactics, which is what the second amendment really means.
The Second Amendment means no such thing and says no such thing. It says that even if we DO have a standing military, that doesn't mean the existence of such can allow the government to infringe on the people's rights to keep and bear arms. As mentioned above, the people wrote the amendment couldn't have been clearer on the subject. The problem here is that you don't know how to read - history, or the amendment itself. You also completely fail to understand the structure of the constitution. That Bill of Rights is all about preventing the government from interfering with your natural rights - not establishing rules about who should be able to own a printing press, or a gun.
Those 2nd Amendment supporters who think a cupboard full of guns will protect them from "evil gubbermint" are seriously deluded.
It doesn't matter what you or they think about that particular topic. That's not what the Second Amendment is about. If you want to keep and bear arms for your own self defense (because the government was NOT structured to keep armed people at your side 24x7 to protect you from harm), or for hunting, or for sport - you have the right to do so, and the founders considered (very wisely) that there would always be people like you coming along saying that they know better when or whether you deserve protection, and use that as an excuse to take that personal right away. They were right - here you are, preaching exactly that.
The current crop of supporters blathering on about "home defense" don't have such rights.
Let's break this down, shall we? If I break into your house and attack you, you don't have the right to try to prevent me from hurting you? Is that REALLY how you think? Be specific.
I guess I am not totally convinced. Each one of the quotes to me seem to be quotes in support of bodies like the 13 state militias
If that's how it seems to you, it's because you're still deliberately not reading the words in front of you. There's a reason I saved the last two quotes for last, because they're so succinct. Especially important: while the founders considered states' rights to be vital (another area in which current politics has hugely over-reached), there were some areas considered to sacrosanct that it was worth building nation-wide, at-all-levels-of-government prohibitions against government infringement into the nation's charter. By definition, things cast in that way supersede activity at the state level. Those who were chartering and ratifying the state constitutions were doing so in keeping with the federal constitution - those things had to be in sync. Where they were not, that had to reconciled by either convincing all of the states to see (and thus amend) the federal constitution to suit, or by amending (or differently authoring) the state constitutions. There's zero wiggle room. So when you see authors of the state constitutions (see Henry, in Virginia, for example) being crystal clear about echoing the federal constitution's protection of natural individual rights to self defense through the keeping and bearing of arms, you're getting another view into the very well understood purpose of the second amendment.
When Adams (one of the authors of the Second Amendment) says "The Constitution shall never be construed to prevent the people of the United States who are peaceable citizens from keeping their own arms," I trust you're seeing his reference to 'the United States' (not just Massachusetts), and 'citizens' (not some collective) and 'their own' in reference to peaceable citizens. He's not talking about military units - the entire notion of 'peaceable' applies to those who are not criminals. Adams was a talented and very literal lawyer. He didn't choose those words casually, and if he'd meant to say that he was referring to military units he'd have said so in no uncertain terms. He served in more than one trial where the issue at hand involved friction between military and private people. This is not an area about which he'd have been in any way vague.
Why did the house adopt the wording “A well regulated militia, composed of the body of the people, being the best security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed, but no one religiously scrupulous of bearing arms, shall be compelled to render military service in person.”
Because they were REALLY trying to avoid the existence of a long-term, standing army. The prevailing wish among the founders was that there would never be a standing, professional military. They'd had too much of that from the British, and saw what having a life-long military aristocracy did. So they preferred instead to consider the entire nation to be the military, if and when the need should ever arise (think: the draft), though they left room for people like Quakers to opt out of such activity if they had real convictions along those lines. Because they considered a standing army to be anathema, they wanted it to be VERY clear that the only way to have a society that could, should the need arise, be capable with their arms was: to make sure that nobody in government could ever prevent people from owning them. Notice the complete lack of language requiring people to own them, or dictating any sort of skill or militia membership rules ... because that's not what they're talking about. They're simply saying: "Beyond the natural right to own the tools of your own self defense, we have a vested interest in making sure that the government never infringes on citizens' keeping and bearing of arms ... because if the shit hits the fan, we want a society that already knows what the
But if you still don't have the energy to use Google, here are some of the founders talking about how they see the matter - as both the federal, and individual state constitutions were being ratified and as they talked with others on the subject. These guys talked specifically and frequently - in correspondence, in the Federalist Papers, and before congress and their state legislatures - in terms that aren't in any way vague. People with an agenda to revise history and strip away your constitutionally protected rights will, of course, pretend they aren't good enough researchers to read what these men had to say both personally and officially. For example:
"If circumstances should at any time oblige the government to form an army of any magnitude that army can never be formidable to the liberties of the people while there is a large body of citizens, little, if at all, inferior to them in discipline and the use of arms, who stand ready to defend their own rights and those of their fellow-citizens. This appears to me the only substitute that can be devised for a standing army, and the best possible security against it, if it should exist." - Alexander Hamilton, Federalist No. 28, January 10, 1788
"Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect everyone who approaches that jewel. Unfortunately, nothing will preserve it but downright force. Whenever you give up that force, you are ruined.... The great object is that every man be armed. Everyone who is able might have a gun." - Patrick Henry, Speech to the Virginia Ratifying Convention, June 5, 1778
"Before a standing army can rule, the people must be disarmed, as they are in almost every country in Europe. The supreme power in America cannot enforce unjust laws by the sword; because the whole body of the people are armed, and constitute a force superior to any band of regular troops." - Noah Webster, An Examination of the Leading Principles of the Federal Constitution, October 10, 1787
"To disarm the people...[i]s the most effectual way to enslave them." - George Mason, referencing advice given to the British Parliament by Pennsylvania governor Sir William Keith, The Debates in the Several State Conventions on the Adoption of the Federal Constitution, June 14, 1788
"The Constitution of most of our states (and of the United States) assert that all power is inherent in the people; that they may exercise it by themselves; that it is their right and duty to be at all times armed." - Thomas Jefferson, letter to to John Cartwright, 5 June 1824
"A strong body makes the mind strong. As to the species of exercises, I advise the gun. While this gives moderate exercise to the body, it gives boldness, enterprise and independence to the mind. Games played with the ball, and others of that nature, are too violent for the body and stamp no character on the mind. Let your gun therefore be your constant companion of your walks." - Thomas Jefferson, letter to Peter Carr, August 19, 1785
There's also the fact that the mere concept of the 2nd Amendment being an individual right is a recent invention basically paid for by the weapons industry
No. The Second Amendment was proposed, talked about, debated, and eventually ratified by people who EXACTLY considered it to be about protecting (not creating - you don understand how the Constitution works, don't you?) the individual right to keep and bear arms. There are mountains of letters, transcripts, and explicit explanations from those who created the Bill of Rights to help you understand their thinking about this, as well as other familiar ones (like the freedom to speak, assemble, etc).
... what it does say, since you obviously can't parse the period language, is essentially this: "Since it looks like we're going to have to have a military at some level, the fact that there will be armed, professionally trained people IN that military does not give anyone in the government the excuse to infringe on the personal right to keep and bear arms."
The colonists had just lived through the Crown's tyranny in many forms - not least of which was the stationing of soldiers in people's homes and the confiscation of their personal weapons. The official British line was, "We have a well ordered military presence in the colonies, and they are all that's needed to maintain peace and your safety..." and that was the excuse for going farm-to-farm, house-to-house, and confiscating weapons. Of course people who didn't respect British law might still hide them, and of course criminals were thrilled that the population was disarmed, since they personally were not.
The founders considered that entire scenario unacceptable for many reasons. So much so that they went out of their way to explicitly prevent their new government from ever infringing on that personal liberty again (just like they also said that the government could not infringe on freedom of expression or assembly). Much to many of the founders' annoyance, they recognized that there would be a need for a standing military of some sort - at the very least, at the local "militia" level. The Second Amendment doesn't establish a military, or speak to one's qualifications to be in it, or have anything to say about how it is funded or armed
That was the entire point of the amendment! They didn't want the local rich guy who was funding the county's militia to say, "Hey, I've got twenty guys with some training and muskets, so I think it's best if everyone else in the county is stripped of their weapons - why would they need them?" But just like today, you can't have armed people from the government everywhere you go and in your house to defend you at every moment. Law enforcement comes AFTER you have a need for self defense. The founders didn't have to be geniuses on this topic, just simple rational thinkers.
All of this was and has been obvious since the country was chartered. For a couple hundred years, it went without saying that this was the premise and the reality of the Second Amendment. But more recently, of course, totalitarian-minded nanny-state types have been anxious to make people ever more dependent on the government, since that dependency buys them more power and a guaranteed career in being indispensable and in charge of everyone else. Routinely indicating that things like private gun ownership are horrible, and only more government, more intrusively involved in every day life could possibly be the rational replacement for things like the capability for self defense - that's just part of the larger lefty world view and movement towards a larger, sprawling, ever more powerful government.
Yes, the founders did ALSO talk about the people's right (indeed, obligation) to overthrow a government that has chosen to trash the constitution. But we've never been in that situation to the degree that the pendulum couldn't be pushed the other way through the ballot box. Millions of people who don't like the candidate they'r
How about having done the easy work we could have done in the first place? Long before Russia realized the coast was clear for them to expand militarily into the area, and long before Iran established ever more robust supply lines for the people they back in the slaughter there, the circumstances were cast in stone by Assad using things like barrel bombs and chemical seapons dropped from helicopters onto protesters and into city areas where support for his removal was strong. Half a day's air strikes would have completely removed Assad's air power from the equation. Which you know. But you're trying to give cover to the military commander who went on about red lines not being crossed, but then allowed Assad to maintain complete air control of the area in order to kill untold thousands and flush millions into neighboring countries. Yes, now it's too late for that - Obama guaranteed that, and Clinton helped.
I know, you're trying SO hard to miss the point. Which was a rebuttal of the earlier poster's assertion that the party he opposes is all about the worst things he doesn't like about a sub-set of one faction of that party. So the question is, why is it unreasonable to say that the party he supports is all about the worst things we see in sub-sets of factions that support his party? We DO have video of activist marchers carrying signs and chanting about the need to kill police. And we have people who praise those groups actually doing things like shooting down half a dozen cops in the street specifically to support that agenda. But wait, you say, that's not representative of the Democrat party. Right. But it's OK to disingenuously use a different standard when talking about Republicans, right? Sure, of course.
the left has been working hard to protect _everybody's_ rights
Everyone except the people with whom they disagree. For them, they work hard to shout down and force college campuses to preemptively pull the plug on speeches deemed insufficiently lefty. They work hard to support groups that chant in the street about their desire to see police officers killed. The left works hard to promote the idea that the government should ban or otherwise shut up web sites that they consider "unfair" because ... they're very popular with millions of people who don't tow the lefty line.
And I wouldn't call that guy a radical extremist
Right. His repeated pronouncements about his embrace of a mass-murdering, medieval-minded theocratic terror organization that likes to burn people alive and slaughter people because of their heritage - no, nothing radical there.
I'd call him mentally ill and very likely a closet homosexual (he'd been hanging around the bar a bit too much to just be 'casing' the joint, they recognized him).
All of the early ruminating about his frequenting gay chat/dating sites have been proven to be nothing but rumor. Never happened. He cased the bar more than once, as many terrorists do before killing large numbers of people in soft target locations. Fits the usual pattern perfectly.
Everybody gets protected.
As long as they swear fealty to lefty ideology, you mean. Otherwise, they are to be silenced, targeted by the IRS, banned from campus, attacked on the street outside their political events, that sort of thing. Because nobody gets left behind when it comes to vitriol from the left.
Nobody thrown under the bus.
Unless they've been doing work for the Clintons, in which case they DO get thrown under the bus, and the bus also backs over them a couple of times to be sure.
And that includes Muslims.
Unless they are Muslims who are being attacked with chemical weapons, bombed by Russia, and the like. They get left behind. Because even though red lines are crossed, what's a few hundred thousand dead Muslims and a few million of them running for their lives into Europe, right? That's just another way of showing support for them. Tough love and whatnot.
Why should I believe that the alt-right doesn't want to stone gays to death in the street?
What if they do? They aren't in charge. Should we be concerned that "the Democrats" want to kill all the police officers, just because a fringe group of movements associated with lefty politics shouts about wanting that?
How about Hillary? She's best buds and on the take (in the millions of dollars) from people who like to see gays thrown from rooftops to their deaths, burned alive, and other hideous fates. Clearly, the Democrats support killing gays, because their leader and the person they think best embodies their values happily associates with and is handsomely paid by people who openly call for and follow through with the routine killing of LBGTQEVERYTHINGELSE. Why aren't you scared of what's happening in Europe? Waves of immigrants from that part of the world are bringing with them an embrace of the very medieval world view that brings about the actual thing you say you fear - and it's the Democrats who are insisting that we aren't doing nearly enough to bring in enough of that culture to the US.
Liberals literally attacking Trump supporters in the street.
https://www.washingtonpost.com...
Liberals burning down part of their cities.
See Ferguson or Baltimore just as two easy examples. You can't pretend you're unaware of these events, or of the fact that most of the arrests made turn out to be of people who don't even live in the effected areas.
Saying that first amendment rights shouldn't apply to non-liberals.
See every recent discussion, always started on the left, about doing things like bringing the "Fairness Doctrine" back from its well-earned, unconstitutional grave. See virtually every college campus, especially when progressive protesters threaten to disrupt speeches by people like Condi Rice ... and school administrations agree with them, cancelling such gatherings in order to appease the angry liberals. There are so many examples of this sort of thing that you can't possibly be unaware of them.
Saying that Assange should be shot.
Take or leave reports of Hillary Clinton doing a "Will nobody rid me of this troublesome priest?" and talking (while in office) about "droning" Assange. But for a more on-video example of a typical self-professed arch liberal pundit, look to people like Bob Beckel, famous for saying things like, "A dead man can’t leak stuff. This guy’s a traitor, he’s treasonous, and he has broken every law of the United States. And I’m not for the death penalty, so ... there’s only one way to do it: illegally shoot the son of a bitch."
Liberals calling for police to be killed.
You're kidding, right? We've seen whole marches full of people chanting about "killing pigs" and that old favorite, "What do we want? Dead cops! When do we want them? Now!" Who? Black Lives Matter gatherings. BLM is a darling of the progressive left, and local franchises thereof receive substantial support from groups like OSF (famously liberal activist George Soros' channel for putting cash into such movements and events).
... well, that's just pretending. And no, most people don't think that defines the Democrat party, per se.
The point, of course, is that the poster above is asserting that some fringe element he especially dislikes is the very definition of the wider party he wants to see defeated. Pretending that the party he DOES like doesn't have, dragging around with it, people who are every bit as bad or worse, including some that literally violent or at least enthusiastic about violence
So you're saying that the "alt-right" you find so disturbing IS the Republican party, but the hardcore lefties who literally attack Trump supporters in the street, say they hate him as they burn down parts of their own cities, screech that the First Amendment's protections shouldn't apply to non-liberals, and who think that (for example) Julian Assange should be shot for endangering Hillary Clinton's campaign ... those are all people who ARE the Democrat party, right? People who align with Hillary Clinton but who actually call for police to be killed and for the tearing down of any privately owned businesses ... that's what Democrats stand for, and thus why you should vote for Clinton, right? Because you like those ideas?
Or is there a chance that you're being a totally disingenuous hypocrite in using one fraction of one group to define the whole, but carefully avoiding that exact same standard when it comes to the person you like?
"Won't someone think of the Rich White Men!!"
Yes, every middle-aged guy sitting in a cubicle at Yahoo making just enough to pay for a house in SV is "rich."
Don't you mean "comeuppance"? Or am I missing something?
No, you're not missing anything. The GP is a woman, and can't spell.
So you know nothing about the last few thousand years of history
Are you somehow time traveling here to post, and then going back to live a thousand years ago? No? I see.
You're a gay Trump supporter?
Why wouldn't he be? Whether or not Trump personally would enter into a gay marriage, he was in public talking plainly about how happy he was for (his casual acquaintance) Elton John to have married his long-time partner, and that people should be cool with it. At the same time, Hillary Clinton was voicing her support for her husband's signing of a law to prevent such things, and Barack Obama was sticking with his "marriage should be between one man and one woman" position. Trump has created more jobs jumped-on by gay people (in the entertainment, pagent, and hospitality businesses) that Hillary Clinton ever could or would. Why shouldn't a gay person support him? Are gay people supposed to like illegal immigration, higher taxes, more regulation, feckless foreign policy, and a nanny state that makes class and racial tensions WORSE instead of better? Please explain.
There's a qualified one now, even if she isn't eye candy.
Who are you referring to? The Green candidate? The "doctor" who is anti-science? No, she's not qualified. Non-scientists can be forgiven for not understanding science (though not forgiven for putting anti-science people in science-related roles). But professional scientists who rail against science are exhibiting a world view that immediately disqualifies them from office.
the misogyny is strong with this one
The most obvious thing that's wrong with Team SJW is that they do things like calling the pointing out of facts "misogyny." Finally, enough people are getting sick of that Orwellian bit of PC nonsense, and millions of people are preparing to vote for someone they don't particularly like, just so they can deny a vote the kind of person who practices and preaches that sort of deliberate BS in pursuit of political power.
No, pointing out that it's foolish to vote for a corrupt, incompetent, career-long liar who has only evaded prison because of her political connections because she is a woman is NOT misogyny. But calling someone who makes that observation a misogynist is an example of the juvenile, delusional mindset and behavior that has millions and millions of people taking steps to show how sick they are of it. Let me guess, you consider that half of your fellow citizens to be irredeemably deplorable, right? Yeah, figured.
In my experience people who blame the victim of a crime are often either committing that crime themselves, or think that they may commit it (perhaps accidentally) in the future.
In my experience, people who think that mentioning how often elderly people with dementia can be vulnerable to these kinds of scams is an example of blaming the victim as opposed to citing an example of how the GP's reference to wanting to punish the victims for their stupidity is misguided ... are not paying attention to the conversation. And that's being generous.
When they tried to call Donald Trump to demand back taxes
Which back taxes? Please be specific with this mysterious information you have. Really, your citations would be terrific reading. Thanks!
I really don't know who I want to punish for this; those who capitalize on stupidity and ignorance, or those creating such a market.
Ever had a little old lady neighbor beginning to suffer from some flavor of dementia while still owning a phone? No? STFU.
This says more about our insane tax code and US citizens' absolute, paralyzing fear of the IRS and its capricious life-wrecking ways than it does about the fact that there are such things as con men taking advantage of it.