Bear in mind that the U.S. Constitution is the shortest in the world, at less than 5,000 words. Most national constitutions are very long and extremely exact to make sure the meaning is perfectly clear. The Founding Fathers could have easily made the Constitution perfectly specific and clear, but they chose to keep it vague, to make sure it was open for interpretation later on. The U.S. government has been in constant evolution since 1787.
Case in point: the 9th amendment (one of my favorites) specifically says there are more rights than are written down.
The enumeration in the Constitution of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
Hell, the Supreme Court flat-out granted itself nullification powers in Marbury vs. Madison, a power the Constitution never explicitly granted it. Like with rights, there are also more government powers than are written down. And to my knowledge, nobody has seriously challenged the Supreme Court's ability to strike down laws in nearly 200 years.
The Constitution is just the bare bones of the Founding Father's thinking; you can't fit all of their discussions and all of their reasoning in 5,000 words. If you want to get into the nitty gritty details, we'd need to be discussing The Federalist. That's where the Founding Fathers explained their philosophy in greater detail.
Not to mention, guns in 1776 didn't have the mass killing power that guns today do. A mentally-ill person with a musket and bayonet would have done a lot less damage than the same person with an AK-47.
The 2nd Amendment therefore is, for now, considered the highest practice of this, the Government must allow the people the capability to even overthrow the Government.
If you want to get rid of Guns, thats fine, but that is not in line with the modern Western Republic, your probably more inclined to Socialism or Communism (ie. The Government solves all problems fort he people) not coincidentally, Communism always did this.
Do you contest the notion that the government has you outgunned at least one trillion to one? How do you expect to overthrow an oppressive government using force?
In exactly the same way that the original colonists overthrew the British government, who also had the colonies outgunned several hundreds to one.
One critical difference is that we no longer need to worry about King George imposing taxes on the United States. Today, we elect the people who govern our country--we have taxation with orepresentation. Fighting for independence from a foreign country is one thing, but Overthrowing a democratically elected government is another. I see no need to take up arms against my local Congressmen. If I don't like them, I can vote them out of office. If they still get elected, obviously my opinion is the minority.
Mao Zedong, the founder of modern China and one of the most prolific mass murderers in human history, said that "political power grows out of the barrel of a gun." Not in the United States. For the past 250 years, our government officials took power through the ballot, not the bullet.
We have a legitimate, democratically elected government. The one form of government that never deserves to be overthrown.
Personally, I think the Founding Fathers would have found the concept of gun control rather alien. Mass shootings, private firing ranges for gun hobbyists, the NRA, cops with handguns, gangs, the drug trade, background checks, paintball guns, gunfights in movies and TV and video games and on the news--all of these things are famous parts of our modern armed society and culture. Yet not a single one existed in 1787.
Revolutionary America was a rural, agricultural nation with no inner city gangs, organized crime, or drug epidemic. In the 18th century, guns were slow-reloading blackpowder muskets, primarily used for hunting animals, fighting Native American tribes, shooting people who insulted you in duels, and fighting the British, more or less in that order.
If you resurrected one of the Founding Fathers and asked him whether background checks would reduce the number of guns in the hands of inner city gangs, or whether they'd just get their Glocks and Uzis from another state or Mexican drug cartels, the question wouldn't even make sense to him.
Whatever the merits of the two sides of this debate, neither of them has anything to do with the world of 1787.
@semiticgod I think that you are overlooking something fundamental about the entire situation. The amendment wasn't put into the constitution to CAUSE any of the things being discussed such as overthrowing an unjust government. Nor was it intended to state that such a government existed necessitating the amendment. It was put in place as a safeguard against such a possibility ever existing.
You may personally believe that we have an ideal society at the moment. If we do it is because these types of safeguards exist in the first place.
As for your statement:
The one form of government (democratically elected) that never deserves to be overthrown.
I strongly disagree. As did the founding fathers. That is why there is a provision for impeachment within our laws and structures. Just because a government is democratically elected does NOT make it perfection. Just ask Nixon.
And while you may not consider impeachment a form of overthrowing a government, it absolutely is. It is a way of ousting a seated governmental body against that body's will. It just doesn't involve guns.
We have a legitimate, democratically elected government. The one form of government that never deserves to be overthrown.
Except the case where an elected Government decides to turn against the citizenry.
It's unusual that you would accept the system that the founding fathers created, then not accept the system that the founding fathers created at the same time.
And you can overthrow the Government, it is simply that we have a peaceful system in place that works to some extent, but there is no guarantee that system will work forever
That is precisely the reason for the 2nd Amendment.
Your notion is based on ideal situation lasting forever, that is not the basis of the American Republic, which was built assuming human nature abuses power eventually.
Even the notion of Democrat electing representatives was also based alot on the actual rejection of Real Democracy, because the Founding Fathers explicitly said that does not work.
Whatever the merits of the two sides of this debate, neither of them has anything to do with the world of 1787.
Arbitrary rejection based on time, not a valid argument.
You accept democratically elected officials, and yet they thought it up back then too. With your logic we may reject even your support of such a system because back then was not the world of 1787.
'Practical understanding' of constitutional documents.... Where can I obtain this rare fish?
The Founding Fathers wrote alot, its quite fortunate when you have writings from the very people who authored the constitution, about the constitution and its concepts.
I don't believe we have an ideal society; I disagree with virtually every policy and priority of the Trump administration. I just don't see how a violent overthrow of the U.S. government could possibly put in place a superior system. I didn't get what I wanted in the 2016 election, and neither did most Americans due to the electoral college, but I know that one of those votes belonged to me.
The fact that impeachment does not involve guns is my point: violent methods are not necessary when there are already nonviolent means of removing people from office.
I don't believe elections always get things right. Not even if we're talking about ranked ballots and popular votes and proportional representation in a system where there's zero gerrymandering and no restrictions on voting rights. But I do believe it's better than the alternative.
Let's not mince words. I am criticizing a very specific idea here: some people--not in this thread, but elsewhere--have said that the purpose of the 2nd amendment is to allow people to take up arms and overthrow the U.S. government through force of violence--if they decide on their own that it's necessary.
This is not a straw man. Some people really do believe, and say, that people should have the power to stage a violent coup and oust our elected representatives without elections or even due process of law.
That's the idea I disagree with. If we want our government to operate using the best ideas, the best way to do make that happen is to work through the free marketplace of ideas. In the free marketplace of ideas, good ideas eventually win out. Only people with strong arguments can win a debate.
But on the battlefield, military power wins out. And anyone, no matter how corrupt or selfish or wrongheaded they are, can win a war.
As far as the 2nd amendment goes: I doubt the Founding Fathers wanted or expected the republic they created to be rightfully overthrown through force of violence. In the Revolutionary War, the Founding Fathers weren't fighting against a democratic government to begin with. The whole point of the war was to put a democratic government in place, because the colonists didn't have a vote in Parliament.
Besides, if a tyrannical government somehow took power in Washington, I don't think they'd let the 2nd amendment get in their way.
I just don't see how a violent overthrow of the U.S. government could possibly put in place a superior system.
There have been many examples in history.
Furthermore, your still misunderstanding the very basis of the American Republic.
It is not for you or anyone to take away other peoples rights, the basis of the Government Is to Preserve Rights. not take them away because one thinks its not feasible.
That line of thinking is Socialism and Communism.
To put it another way, One could argue to reject the 1st Amendment because of internet trolling, i could argue that their world back then is not our world now.
That is precisely why that line of thinking is far more dangerous, because on the basis of your evaluation of what may work, it rationalizes taking away peoples rights.
The Founding Fathers sought to preserve Rights as the basis of Government precisely because they knew Human in power tries to take away rights all the time and rationalizes it.
Let us presume you actually do get it right by some miracle, and Government therefore goes along the route of rationalizing what Right to take away.
Can you guarantee it will never be abused?
No, and that leads to what the Founding Fathers wanted, a system where its focus is preserving Rights. The basis of Republic is about Government preserving Rights and as much as possible letting the people have Freedom and Agency to solve their own problems.
The only right I oppose is the right to overthrow a democratic government through violence. Precisely because the people who would do it would be even less likely to respect rights when they take over.
The only right I oppose is the right to overthrow a democratic government through violence.
A democratically elected Government can turn against its own Citizenry.
An elected King, murdering his own people, is no different then an elected Politician going after their own people.
In this case you assume and rely on a functioning justice system to solve this problem, but you cannot guarantee this will remain forever, which again leads to what the Founding Fathers wanted.
To give and preserve a Right that the people could rectify this situation themselves when the very institutions we rely on, don't work.
Taking away this right, could only be rationalized if anyone can prove and guarantee the Justice System will work for all time against any future circumstance.
Let me say it another way, the 2nd Amendment has already proven to be correct because of Europe. In our lifetime, we already have seen that the police can and have abandoned the citizenry and the citizenry are forced to defend themselves with weapons.
One thing you won't see at left-wing protests of Trump is alot of people with guns over their shoulders carrying a Gadsden flag talking about "watering the tree of liberty with the blood of tyrants". The amount of times I listened to a right-wing radio show caller say Obama was going to declare martial law to stay in office the past eight years is too numerous to count. Based on nothing.
In the meantime, Trump has already proved in the debates that he will consider illegitimate any election outcome in which he does not come out the winner. 2018 or 2020. Martial law?? No, but he will attempt to use the power of his office to call into question the legitimacy of the results, make no doubt of that. And still, at that point, the left would be calling on our institutions to live up to their ideals, or for the media to do it's job. I don't think you're going to find them showing up at protests with firearms.
One thing you won't see at left-wing protests of Trump is alot of people with guns over their shoulders carrying a Gadsden flag talking about "watering the tree of liberty with the blood of tyrants".
Left-wing protests are far more violent, the Left-Wing is having a problem managing their extreme elements atm.
I don't recall protesters systematically chasing down Hillary or Bernie supporters during a Rally, i do recall national news when protesters chased down Trump supporters who were simply seeing a rally. It was a constant theme in the news during the elections that Rallygoers get attacked by protesters.
Yet not a single attack with a gun. Unlike the Indian and Sikh immigrants gunned down in just the past few weeks whose assailants specifically used anti-immigrant rhetoric to their victims before carrying out the attacks. I know for a fact I'd rather be sucker-punched once to the head rather than shot dead, though I suppose your mileage may vary.
The fact that impeachment does not involve guns is my point: violent methods are not necessary when there are already nonviolent means of removing people from office.
President Clinton got impeached yet didn't step down. Yes, impeachment is a process within the government designed to unseat that government. But it is only one way. There are others. There HAS to be others because not every solution works every time.
I don't believe elections always get things right. Not even if we're talking about ranked ballots and popular votes and proportional representation in a system where there's zero gerrymandering and no restrictions on voting rights. But I do believe it's better than the alternative.
I don't think anyone here would disagree. The alternatives are not pleasant. But they do exist and by design. BECAUSE sometimes peaceful methods don't work.
Let's not mince words. I am criticizing a very specific idea here: some people--not in this thread, but elsewhere--have said that the purpose of the 2nd amendment is to allow people to take up arms and overthrow the U.S. government through force of violence--if they decide on their own that it's necessary.
This is not a straw man. Some people really do believe, and say, that people should have the power to stage a violent coup and oust our elected representatives without elections or even due process of law.
That's the idea I disagree with. If we want our government to operate using the best ideas, the best way to do make that happen is to work through the free marketplace of ideas. In the free marketplace of ideas, good ideas eventually win out. Only people with strong arguments can win a debate.
In an ideal world, you are 100% right. In an ideal world.
I am not saying "Let's rise up against Trump!" Nor am I saying that if one individual decides that they don't like the government that they should pull a gun. But, yes. In part the 2nd Amendment is precisely there in case all other avenues fail and enough of the populace believe it the best thing to remove a president/administration and they have no other option. I by no means think that it was written as a call to action towards that end, but it ALLOWS that end.
But on the battlefield, military power wins out. And anyone, no matter how corrupt or selfish or wrongheaded they are, can win a war.
Not necessarily. History is replete with examples of how smaller, less well equipped forces have taken down military might. While it is true that France interceded when we seceded, we fought a largely gorilla war up to that point. Sometime read up on the Korean war and the gorilla tactics that kept THAT conflict going for as long as it did. Take a look at Al Queda and how many bloody noses they have given the US.
As far as the 2nd amendment goes: I doubt the Founding Fathers wanted or expected the republic they created to be rightfully overthrown through force of violence. In the Revolutionary War, the Founding Fathers weren't fighting against a democratic government to begin with. The whole point of the war was to put a democratic government in place, because the colonists didn't have a vote in Parliament.
Besides, if a tyrannical government somehow took power in Washington, I don't think they'd let the 2nd amendment get in their way.
I am sure that the founding fathers never wanted or expected their republic to become so corrupt that it would NEED to be overthrown. But I bet that they accepted it as a possibility, however remote.
As for the tyrannical government statement, we are full circle. If such an entity DID take over, they would have the very same hard time removing guns from US as we have been talking about all along.
Trying to argue that one massive group of people is worse than another is usually a hopeless exercise. It just encourages people to demonize each other.
Besides, whenever it comes up, people never seem to cite actual research that tries to find a trend. People just throw out a couple pieces of anecdotal evidence to make generalizations about entire years and decades.
Yet not a single attack with a gun. Unlike the Indian and Sikh immigrants gunned down in just the past few weeks whose assailants specifically used anti-immigrant rhetoric to their victims before carrying out the attacks. I know for a fact I'd rather be sucker-punched once to the head rather than shot dead, though I suppose your mileage may vary.
The trolls who shouted 'Clinton is a rapist' when they protested Hillary's rallies didn't use guns either nor was there a mass killing from Republicans towards Democrats during the Elections done with a Gun.
There was routine protests against Trump where Rallygoers where attacked, this was a constant even in the news during the election.
But curiously the 'gun-toting side' didn't respond with sprayed Gunfire, hell they didn't even 'respond in kind' by going to Hillary/Bernie rallies and chasing people down.
The notion that Democrats have less gun crime then Republicans is a laughable stereotype, when you factor in the real complicated picture it is alot different.
Have you broken down rate of gun-crime, gun homicide by ethnicity? You might find that black African-Americans tend to vote overwhelmingly Democrat, and are overwhelmingly represented in gun-crime, homicide and crime in general.
Which has nothing to do with political affiliation and everything to do with many more complicated factors like drugs, poverty, culture etc.
@vanatos Your definition of 'practical' seems to involve first the application of personal experience, and now an appeal to other contemporaneous texts in order to clarify the text of the constitution. Fair enough... but as with biblical texts one runs into the problem of the generalizability of reinterpretations of ancient texts, and how they are mediated through social institutions. My original point was that who the 'People' are, what 'Arms' are and so on will vary at different times according to accepted interpretations & political trends ... but you don't seem willing to tackle the implications of reinterpretation instead treating it as relativism.
Debates about constitutions do quickly tend to resemble religious ones... praising the wisdom of the originators is another way to universalise their texts. A bit like Aristotle and other classical authors in the medieval period.
The language of the writings of the Founding Fathers is understandable today, it is not an archaic, long-dead language from civilizations far removed from our own.
That's not to say we have perfect understanding of their entire way of thinking of everything, but it isn't quite on the level of the problems with biblical interpretation, which we don't even have extra material from the same author's, nor do we know who those author's are apart from Paul.
I find it interesting that that the same political party wanting to remove guns from the populous because they are dangerous, also support the murder of our children via abortion.
@ThacoBell: Pro-choice people don't consider a fetus to be a child to begin with.
We also don't support abortion; we just want it to be available when it's needed (that's why it's called being pro-choice). It's not like we think everyone should get an abortion just because.
Saying pro-choice equals anti-life is like saying pro-life equals anti-choice.
@semiticgod I like what you're saying, but I have far too many people tell me I should have aborted my son because he has a disability to trust that "when its needed" is actually needed. *edit* I feel that a lot pro "choice" people don't care if its considered a child or not. Far too often I've been told that my son should not be allowed to live and that my "choice" was wrong.
@semiticgod I like what you're saying, but I have far too many people tell me I should have aborted my son because he has a disability to trust that "when its needed" is actually needed. *edit* I feel that a lot pro "choice" people don't care if its considered a child or not. Far too often I've been told that my son should not be allowed to live and that my "choice" was wrong.
I don't know anyone who thinks like that, much less would say that out loud to you. That's a reprehensible thing to say. My position would have been that you would have had the choice to do what you thought was best. I mean, forced abortion is not a thing, it's never even been argued outside the absolute fringes, if even there.
My most personal experience with this was the fact that my ex was a in-home care nurse who took care of a boy who had a rare genetic condition that made it so he couldn't move anything but his eyes to communicate, and had to be fed through a tube for his entire life. He was only supposed to live a few years, as far as I know he is still alive almost 2 decades later. On the one hand, amazing. On the other, I spent alot of time in their house with him, and I couldn't help but often think to myself "my god, what a horrible existence". I would have never blamed those parents for keeping their son (I'm not even sure they even knew about the condition beforehand). But I also can't deny that oftentimes it seemed like he was simply trapped in his own body with no control over anything mostly for the benefit of others. I never quite decided how I felt about that. Then again, he never knew anything different, and at the very least he loved baseball and watched it every day.
But again, this is just a personal story. No one should ever tell you that you should have aborted your son. That's abhorrent. But I also believe the same tolerance should apply to someone who finds out about a serious, life-altering genetic defect and decides to go the other way. After all, this is the very definition of a choice, and if I ever thought the Democratic platform was moving towards "encouraging" abortion or advocating for it, I would oppose that. But I also firmly believe that is not the case.
There are no attacks by leftists I have no idea what propaganda you've seen but if you are afraid of hippies and college professors and people who want others to tolerate each other then you've really bought it.
I have far too many people tell me I should have aborted my son because he has a disability to trust that "when its needed" is actually needed. ... Far too often I've been told that my son should not be allowed to live and that my "choice" was wrong.
Jesus Christ.
Who are these people? And why in the world would they say such a thing? Giving advice long before birth is one thing, but to say this after he was already born and you had made your decision... That's horrible.
I'm not sure I would have made the same decision you did, but I commend you for doing it. Raising children is a huge commitment even if they aren't disabled.
@jjstraka34 , @semiticgod Thanks. Yeah I have no idea why these people thought that was okay. He wasn't guaranteed to have this disability, it was 50/50 chance.
The language of the writings of the Founding Fathers is understandable today, it is not an archaic, long-dead language from civilizations far removed from our own.
That's not to say we have perfect understanding of their entire way of thinking of everything, but it isn't quite on the level of the problems with biblical interpretation, which we don't even have extra material from the same author's, nor do we know who those author's are apart from Paul.
Language may not have changed to the point of incomprehensibility, but social & technological change do place intense pressure on the interpretation of constitutions. Many historians have argued that social changes over the past few hundred years are greater than at any other similar period. So we see the slow turn of legal precedent to support the needs of society at a particular time...
It's worth noting that I have had different experiences of constitutions compared to other forumites perhaps. To give some examples... In the UK there is an occasional call to formulate some sort of text that would formalise individual rights but for now things remain fuzzy- notwithstanding the experiment of importing EU law. In Nepal the formulation of a constitution was an intensely contested and controversial process, it was rewritten in 2015. Japan is continually reinterpreting a constitution formulated while under occupation that is rather difficult to amend- article 9 has been twisted up like a pretzel. America's complex reverence for its founders is an interesting case of national myth-making (in a positive sense), but there are obviously many possible relations to the text of a constitution. Sometimes a prison, sometimes a shelter, sometimes a ladder...
@semiticgod I like what you're saying, but I have far too many people tell me I should have aborted my son because he has a disability to trust that "when its needed" is actually needed. *edit* I feel that a lot pro "choice" people don't care if its considered a child or not. Far too often I've been told that my son should not be allowed to live and that my "choice" was wrong.
I've worked with many disabled children and unfortunately in many cases they have complained that the state tends to take an adversarial relation to supporting children- fighting endless legal battles against treatment for example. A continual process of attrition...
As screenings for disabilities become more common it seems like more pressure is being put on parents to consider abortions. Sickeningly it's even something of a scam in some countries to report birth defects (or even just that the baby is a girl....) in order to get the mothers to pay for an abortion...
I have a younger brother who is autistic. I know all about the "should have had him aborted" garbage. The people who said that to you are abhorrent excuses for human beings.
However.
The fact that you continuously paint anyone who is pro-choice to be the same as these awful asshats is just as disgusting. I'm pro-choice because it is a choice. You and your partner chose to keep your child for any number of reasons that are not my business, and I respect your decision. I expect just as much respect to be given when another couple makes a different choice.
Shaming people and calling them "baby murderers" does nothing but demonize and divide people, and I will continue to call you on it for as long as you use that language.
Comments
Case in point: the 9th amendment (one of my favorites) specifically says there are more rights than are written down. Hell, the Supreme Court flat-out granted itself nullification powers in Marbury vs. Madison, a power the Constitution never explicitly granted it. Like with rights, there are also more government powers than are written down. And to my knowledge, nobody has seriously challenged the Supreme Court's ability to strike down laws in nearly 200 years.
The Constitution is just the bare bones of the Founding Father's thinking; you can't fit all of their discussions and all of their reasoning in 5,000 words. If you want to get into the nitty gritty details, we'd need to be discussing The Federalist. That's where the Founding Fathers explained their philosophy in greater detail.
Mao Zedong, the founder of modern China and one of the most prolific mass murderers in human history, said that "political power grows out of the barrel of a gun." Not in the United States. For the past 250 years, our government officials took power through the ballot, not the bullet.
We have a legitimate, democratically elected government. The one form of government that never deserves to be overthrown.
Revolutionary America was a rural, agricultural nation with no inner city gangs, organized crime, or drug epidemic. In the 18th century, guns were slow-reloading blackpowder muskets, primarily used for hunting animals, fighting Native American tribes, shooting people who insulted you in duels, and fighting the British, more or less in that order.
If you resurrected one of the Founding Fathers and asked him whether background checks would reduce the number of guns in the hands of inner city gangs, or whether they'd just get their Glocks and Uzis from another state or Mexican drug cartels, the question wouldn't even make sense to him.
Whatever the merits of the two sides of this debate, neither of them has anything to do with the world of 1787.
You may personally believe that we have an ideal society at the moment. If we do it is because these types of safeguards exist in the first place.
As for your statement: I strongly disagree. As did the founding fathers. That is why there is a provision for impeachment within our laws and structures. Just because a government is democratically elected does NOT make it perfection. Just ask Nixon.
And while you may not consider impeachment a form of overthrowing a government, it absolutely is. It is a way of ousting a seated governmental body against that body's will. It just doesn't involve guns.
It's unusual that you would accept the system that the founding fathers created, then not accept the system that the founding fathers created at the same time.
And you can overthrow the Government, it is simply that we have a peaceful system in place that works to some extent, but there is no guarantee that system will work forever
That is precisely the reason for the 2nd Amendment.
Your notion is based on ideal situation lasting forever, that is not the basis of the American Republic, which was built assuming human nature abuses power eventually.
Even the notion of Democrat electing representatives was also based alot on the actual rejection of Real Democracy, because the Founding Fathers explicitly said that does not work. Arbitrary rejection based on time, not a valid argument.
You accept democratically elected officials, and yet they thought it up back then too.
With your logic we may reject even your support of such a system because back then was not the world of 1787. The Founding Fathers wrote alot, its quite fortunate when you have writings from the very people who authored the constitution, about the constitution and its concepts.
The fact that impeachment does not involve guns is my point: violent methods are not necessary when there are already nonviolent means of removing people from office.
I don't believe elections always get things right. Not even if we're talking about ranked ballots and popular votes and proportional representation in a system where there's zero gerrymandering and no restrictions on voting rights. But I do believe it's better than the alternative.
Let's not mince words. I am criticizing a very specific idea here: some people--not in this thread, but elsewhere--have said that the purpose of the 2nd amendment is to allow people to take up arms and overthrow the U.S. government through force of violence--if they decide on their own that it's necessary.
This is not a straw man. Some people really do believe, and say, that people should have the power to stage a violent coup and oust our elected representatives without elections or even due process of law.
That's the idea I disagree with. If we want our government to operate using the best ideas, the best way to do make that happen is to work through the free marketplace of ideas. In the free marketplace of ideas, good ideas eventually win out. Only people with strong arguments can win a debate.
But on the battlefield, military power wins out. And anyone, no matter how corrupt or selfish or wrongheaded they are, can win a war.
As far as the 2nd amendment goes: I doubt the Founding Fathers wanted or expected the republic they created to be rightfully overthrown through force of violence. In the Revolutionary War, the Founding Fathers weren't fighting against a democratic government to begin with. The whole point of the war was to put a democratic government in place, because the colonists didn't have a vote in Parliament.
Besides, if a tyrannical government somehow took power in Washington, I don't think they'd let the 2nd amendment get in their way.
Furthermore, your still misunderstanding the very basis of the American Republic.
It is not for you or anyone to take away other peoples rights, the basis of the Government Is to Preserve Rights. not take them away because one thinks its not feasible.
That line of thinking is Socialism and Communism.
To put it another way, One could argue to reject the 1st Amendment because of internet trolling, i could argue that their world back then is not our world now.
That is precisely why that line of thinking is far more dangerous, because on the basis of your evaluation of what may work, it rationalizes taking away peoples rights.
The Founding Fathers sought to preserve Rights as the basis of Government precisely because they knew Human in power tries to take away rights all the time and rationalizes it.
Let us presume you actually do get it right by some miracle, and Government therefore goes along the route of rationalizing what Right to take away.
Can you guarantee it will never be abused?
No, and that leads to what the Founding Fathers wanted, a system where its focus is preserving Rights.
The basis of Republic is about Government preserving Rights and as much as possible letting the people have Freedom and Agency to solve their own problems.
An elected King, murdering his own people, is no different then an elected Politician going after their own people.
In this case you assume and rely on a functioning justice system to solve this problem, but you cannot guarantee this will remain forever, which again leads to what the Founding Fathers wanted.
To give and preserve a Right that the people could rectify this situation themselves when the very institutions we rely on, don't work.
Taking away this right, could only be rationalized if anyone can prove and guarantee the Justice System will work for all time against any future circumstance.
Let me say it another way, the 2nd Amendment has already proven to be correct because of Europe.
In our lifetime, we already have seen that the police can and have abandoned the citizenry and the citizenry are forced to defend themselves with weapons.
In the meantime, Trump has already proved in the debates that he will consider illegitimate any election outcome in which he does not come out the winner. 2018 or 2020. Martial law?? No, but he will attempt to use the power of his office to call into question the legitimacy of the results, make no doubt of that. And still, at that point, the left would be calling on our institutions to live up to their ideals, or for the media to do it's job. I don't think you're going to find them showing up at protests with firearms.
I don't recall protesters systematically chasing down Hillary or Bernie supporters during a Rally, i do recall national news when protesters chased down Trump supporters who were simply seeing a rally.
It was a constant theme in the news during the elections that Rallygoers get attacked by protesters.
I don't think anyone here would disagree. The alternatives are not pleasant. But they do exist and by design. BECAUSE sometimes peaceful methods don't work. In an ideal world, you are 100% right. In an ideal world.
I am not saying "Let's rise up against Trump!" Nor am I saying that if one individual decides that they don't like the government that they should pull a gun. But, yes. In part the 2nd Amendment is precisely there in case all other avenues fail and enough of the populace believe it the best thing to remove a president/administration and they have no other option. I by no means think that it was written as a call to action towards that end, but it ALLOWS that end. Not necessarily. History is replete with examples of how smaller, less well equipped forces have taken down military might. While it is true that France interceded when we seceded, we fought a largely gorilla war up to that point. Sometime read up on the Korean war and the gorilla tactics that kept THAT conflict going for as long as it did. Take a look at Al Queda and how many bloody noses they have given the US. I am sure that the founding fathers never wanted or expected their republic to become so corrupt that it would NEED to be overthrown. But I bet that they accepted it as a possibility, however remote.
As for the tyrannical government statement, we are full circle. If such an entity DID take over, they would have the very same hard time removing guns from US as we have been talking about all along.
Besides, whenever it comes up, people never seem to cite actual research that tries to find a trend. People just throw out a couple pieces of anecdotal evidence to make generalizations about entire years and decades.
There was routine protests against Trump where Rallygoers where attacked, this was a constant even in the news during the election.
But curiously the 'gun-toting side' didn't respond with sprayed Gunfire, hell they didn't even 'respond in kind' by going to Hillary/Bernie rallies and chasing people down.
The notion that Democrats have less gun crime then Republicans is a laughable stereotype, when you factor in the real complicated picture it is alot different.
Have you broken down rate of gun-crime, gun homicide by ethnicity? You might find that black African-Americans tend to vote overwhelmingly Democrat, and are overwhelmingly represented in gun-crime, homicide and crime in general.
Which has nothing to do with political affiliation and everything to do with many more complicated factors like drugs, poverty, culture etc.
Debates about constitutions do quickly tend to resemble religious ones... praising the wisdom of the originators is another way to universalise their texts. A bit like Aristotle and other classical authors in the medieval period.
That's not to say we have perfect understanding of their entire way of thinking of everything, but it isn't quite on the level of the problems with biblical interpretation, which we don't even have extra material from the same author's, nor do we know who those author's are apart from Paul.
We also don't support abortion; we just want it to be available when it's needed (that's why it's called being pro-choice). It's not like we think everyone should get an abortion just because.
Saying pro-choice equals anti-life is like saying pro-life equals anti-choice.
*edit*
I feel that a lot pro "choice" people don't care if its considered a child or not. Far too often I've been told that my son should not be allowed to live and that my "choice" was wrong.
My most personal experience with this was the fact that my ex was a in-home care nurse who took care of a boy who had a rare genetic condition that made it so he couldn't move anything but his eyes to communicate, and had to be fed through a tube for his entire life. He was only supposed to live a few years, as far as I know he is still alive almost 2 decades later. On the one hand, amazing. On the other, I spent alot of time in their house with him, and I couldn't help but often think to myself "my god, what a horrible existence". I would have never blamed those parents for keeping their son (I'm not even sure they even knew about the condition beforehand). But I also can't deny that oftentimes it seemed like he was simply trapped in his own body with no control over anything mostly for the benefit of others. I never quite decided how I felt about that. Then again, he never knew anything different, and at the very least he loved baseball and watched it every day.
But again, this is just a personal story. No one should ever tell you that you should have aborted your son. That's abhorrent. But I also believe the same tolerance should apply to someone who finds out about a serious, life-altering genetic defect and decides to go the other way. After all, this is the very definition of a choice, and if I ever thought the Democratic platform was moving towards "encouraging" abortion or advocating for it, I would oppose that. But I also firmly believe that is not the case.
Who are these people? And why in the world would they say such a thing? Giving advice long before birth is one thing, but to say this after he was already born and you had made your decision... That's horrible.
I'm not sure I would have made the same decision you did, but I commend you for doing it. Raising children is a huge commitment even if they aren't disabled.
It takes a lot of courage to do that.
It's worth noting that I have had different experiences of constitutions compared to other forumites perhaps. To give some examples... In the UK there is an occasional call to formulate some sort of text that would formalise individual rights but for now things remain fuzzy- notwithstanding the experiment of importing EU law. In Nepal the formulation of a constitution was an intensely contested and controversial process, it was rewritten in 2015. Japan is continually reinterpreting a constitution formulated while under occupation that is rather difficult to amend- article 9 has been twisted up like a pretzel. America's complex reverence for its founders is an interesting case of national myth-making (in a positive sense), but there are obviously many possible relations to the text of a constitution. Sometimes a prison, sometimes a shelter, sometimes a ladder...
As screenings for disabilities become more common it seems like more pressure is being put on parents to consider abortions. Sickeningly it's even something of a scam in some countries to report birth defects (or even just that the baby is a girl....) in order to get the mothers to pay for an abortion...
I have a younger brother who is autistic. I know all about the "should have had him aborted" garbage. The people who said that to you are abhorrent excuses for human beings.
However.
The fact that you continuously paint anyone who is pro-choice to be the same as these awful asshats is just as disgusting. I'm pro-choice because it is a choice. You and your partner chose to keep your child for any number of reasons that are not my business, and I respect your decision. I expect just as much respect to be given when another couple makes a different choice.
Shaming people and calling them "baby murderers" does nothing but demonize and divide people, and I will continue to call you on it for as long as you use that language.
It would be against the Site Rules, in fact. Making accusations about other forumites is not accepted here.