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Topic: The War Cult (Read 5268 times)
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John Edward Mercier
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By change in parameters, I wasn't including the threat of punishment.
Imagine that I was to rob your empty house... the risk to me is lower than robbing it while your home.
Now imagine that I have knowledge of your being home and armed... while the risk increases (change in parameter), the value of robbing your house still might exist.
Methodology would change based on the threat of punishment.
My argument is that the protection of the individual right wasn't of the greatest concern to those that wanted the 2nd Amendment. That had the US Constitution failed to be ratified, the AofC would remain intact... and that it did not have a protection of such an individual right.
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TJames
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By change in parameters, I wasn't including the threat of punishment.
Imagine that I was to rob your empty house... the risk to me is lower than robbing it while your home.
Now imagine that I have knowledge of your being home and armed... while the risk increases (change in parameter), the value of robbing your house still might exist.
Moral people who bike to work in the rain may profit by doing so, or die. Are you a constitutionalist? |
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John Edward Mercier
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What would that matter under these parameters?
The robber would simply be judging the risk/reward and best strategy to achieve success; they really wouldn't be concerned with the constitutional question; nor even the moral question as they've already answered it for themselves - and chose robbery.
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TJames
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Did we need protection of that right? The Constitution allows the government to expand. It doesn't protect us as much as the Non-Aggression Principle.
But I digress. One 22 can keep a million dollars in your house. It doesn't need to be said that if one was rich it would be harder to steal from him anyway.
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John Edward Mercier
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Protection of which Right?
The principle is a self-held moral conviction... it doesn't apply to everyone.
And I doubt that the robber would hold that moral conviction; or he/she wouldn't be a robber.
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TJames
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Generally criminals only take your rights when they are near you. They also can be arrested. So what if they don't play by the natural law of non-aggression?
Government is a different animal. It did offer to protect the right to keep and bear but that right is our responsibility. It is up to us to stop crime. Government often harbors crime.
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John Edward Mercier
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The discussion was no repercussion, so arrest would be out of the question.
The other discussion was that the Bill of Rights was only added after concerns arose about changing from the AofC to the US Constitution.
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10stateswithnh
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John:
Yes, the BoR was added because of concerns, but actually it was added after the first 11 states had ratified, in some cases with delegates promising to enact a BoR in order to secure the ratification. And for the most part, the so-called Federalist / anti-Federalist dispute was just over whether to ratify first or amend first.
Also, most of the BoR principles were already protected in state constitutions, and some of those did make it clear that the right to keep and bear arms was an individual right. The BoR was just making it clear that the federal government couldn't infringe on whatever system and laws the state had, and as there was no delegation of authority to regulate firearms to the US government, this was viewed by most as just stating the obvious. The BoR, as I'm sure you know, was not applied to the state governments until the 14th amendment, after the War Between the States. So really, whether it was an individual or state right, didn't matter until then, from the point of view of understanding the role of the federal government in making gun laws (which is that there was no such role, and no authority to make any federal gun laws).
Travis:
It's not so much that the Constitution allows the expansion of the government, as that it doesn't have the ability to enforce itself. No mere document could against courts like the Marshall court of the early 1800's, and the two Warren courts of the 1950s to 1970s who just invented new rights and constitutional powers out of their own political preferences, with really no textual basis in the Constitution at all.
You're right though, that the Constitution has failed to do what it was supposed to do. However, I see a side benefit. If not for the Constitution, what would have happened to the idea of limited central government that is accountable to a sovereign people in their sovereign states? Would anyone still believe that or would that enlightenment view of things have been erased by socialist / "progressive" history in the US as it was in the European countries that developed it? I have my opinion, I wonder what you think. In other words, in spite of the fact that it failed, I believe our world would be much worse off if the experiment had not been tried. People were not ready to try complete noncoercion then, so it was a step forward for the cause of freedom. Perhaps they are now, or can become come so by our outreach and education efforts.
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Bryce in Rochester
States I have lived in:
PA, DE, WA, ME, SC, NY, GA, UT, CO, NH as of Sep 2011!
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John Edward Mercier
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Which States had it in their original constitutions?
And I never stated that before the 14th amendment the BoR was considered to apply to the States...
In fact, I'm declaring quite the opposite.
I'm stating that the States realized a gap from the AofC to the Constitution that could physically threaten their sovereignty.
That the States wanted the 2nd Amendment to protect themselves from the federal government.
And that other sections of the US Constitution and State Constitutions protected the State from any 'armed resistance'.
The States sought to protect themselves from 'armed resistance'; but wanted the federal government subject to 'armed resistance' as a means to protect their sovereignty.
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TJames
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It's not so much that the Constitution allows the expansion of the government, as that it doesn't have the ability to enforce itself. No mere document could against courts like the Marshall court of the early 1800's, and the two Warren courts of the 1950s to 1970s who just invented new rights and constitutional powers out of their own political preferences, with really no textual basis in the Constitution at all.
You're right though, that the Constitution has failed to do what it was supposed to do. However, I see a side benefit. If not for the Constitution, what would have happened to the idea of limited central government that is accountable to a sovereign people in their sovereign states? Would anyone still believe that or would that enlightenment view of things have been erased by socialist / "progressive" history in the US as it was in the European countries that developed it? I have my opinion, I wonder what you think. In other words, in spite of the fact that it failed, I believe our world would be much worse off if the experiment had not been tried. People were not ready to try complete noncoercion then, so it was a step forward for the cause of freedom. Perhaps they are now, or can become come so by our outreach and education efforts.
What if there was no government, every service is privatized, and some authoritarian comes along saying "we need to make a monopoly on the use of force"? He would frighten people if he had any power. He would be working against the interest of many. |
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10stateswithnh
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Pennsylvania had constitutional protection of the right to keep and bear arms, even though there was no militia there. What's more, equating the militias of those times with the National Guard is highly misleading - the militias were ordinary citizens, with their own weapons, who responded when there was a need for defense, and were not a standing army under direct state control. Also, the US principle of the right to keep and bear arms, like the other protections in the bill of rights, were things the colonists already had as legal rights when they were British subjects, this right like those others traced to English traditions where it was clearly understood to be an individual right. A lot of these arguments are laid out, in very brief form, in this list of appellants in the DC v. Heller case (Cato.org hosting the document): http://www.cato.org/pubs/articles/DC_v_Heller.pdfI also read wikipedia on the history of the 2nd amendment. Although there is some evidence for both sides in terms of what the founders meant the 2nd amendment to be, here is a quote about the Massachusetts ratification convention: "The Massachusetts convention also ratified the Constitution with an attached list of proposed amendments. In the end, the ratification convention was so evenly divided between those for and against the Constitution that the federalists agreed to amendments to assure ratification. Samuel Adams proposed that the Constitution: Be never construed to authorize Congress to infringe the just liberty of the press, or the rights of conscience; or to prevent the people of the United States, who are peaceable citizens, from keeping their own arms; or to raise standing armies, unless when necessary for the defence of the United States, or of some one or more of them; or to prevent the people from petitioning, in a peaceable and orderly manner, the federal legislature, for a redress of their grievances: or to subject the people to unreasonable searches and seizures." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Amendment_to_the_United_States_ConstitutionClearly, some of the Massachusetts delegates would not agree to ratify, unless some protection of individual gun possession, and other important rights were guaranteed to be protected from the new federal government. |
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Bryce in Rochester
States I have lived in:
PA, DE, WA, ME, SC, NY, GA, UT, CO, NH as of Sep 2011!
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Pages: 1 2 [3] 
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