Shall we give up on the Constitution ?????

[naplesE30]

^ Why do you insist it WILL NEVER HAPPEN. Its laughable all these people who know it will never happen.... Just like Im sure many germans prob thought 6 million jews will never be killed at the hands of their fellow countrymen, Stalin will never kill us, you all really have a lot of blind faith in man. Men do horrible things when pushed to. You dont know what the future holds.

[joshh]

^ Why do you insist it WILL NEVER HAPPEN. Its laughable all these people who know it will never happen.... Just like Im sure many germans prob thought 6 million jews will never be killed at the hands of their fellow countrymen, Stalin will never kill us, you all really have a lot of blind faith in man. Men do horrible things when pushed to. You dont know what the future holds.

Apparently history isn't "the real world".

[mrsleeve]

No we are more civilized now, we live in a democracy and that kinda of thing happened 70 years ago, it could never happen in any of the rich countries ever again. There will never be a shortage of food, or power, or gas, or video games, or any thing else the modern person wants or desires ever again.................

[Dozyproductions]

I have to ask then, what's the deal with the freeman/sovereign argument? I've literally watched a judge walk out of the court room and have a man win his court case pleaing such a case. It was the most bizarre thing I've come to seen in a long time.

There are some cases in certain state constitutions (NH's comes to mind) where one has the right to revolution.

[mrsleeve]

I was being sarcastic

[frankenbeemer]

I come to the debating section to laugh at the people trying to sound intelligent during an argument but throughout your other posts you sound like an uneducated hill jack. Trying to sound smart through a debate doesn't make your argument any stronger. It doesn't have to be "null and void and off the papers" to be taken in the sense that it was made for. Americans have translated it into a literal sense that they are entitled to any fire arms whenever they wish regardless of the reasons why. Society, civilians, and government have all changed by leaps and bounds from 1776 to today. Weaponry above all Since weaponry has improved drastically it should be regulated on a higher restriction level. However, since we as Americans love to misinterpret things and see them in our favor, people believe they have the right to a fuckin AK47 assault rifle. Get real folks.

Your emotional plea is noted. Here is an excerpt from Sanford Levinson's Yale Law Journal article "The Embarrassing Second Amendment" :


A standard move of those legal analysts who wish to limit the Second Amendment's force is to focus on its "preamble" as setting out a restrictive purpose. Recall Laurence Tribe's assertion that the purpose was to allow the states to keep their militias and to protect them against the possibility that the new national government will use its power to establish a powerful standing army and eliminate the state militias. This purposive reading quickly disposes of any notion that there is an "individual" right to keep and bear arms. The right, if such it be, is only a states's right. The consequence of this reading is obvious: the national government has the power to regulate--to the point of prohibition--private ownership of guns, since that has, by stipulation, nothing to do with preserving state militias. This is, indeed, the position of the ACLU, which reads the Amendment as protection only the right of "maintaining an effective state militia...[T]he individual's right to keep a nd bear arms applies only to the preservation or efficiency of a well-regulated [state] militia. Except for lawful police and military purposes, the possession of weapons by individuals is not constitutionally protected." [40]
This is not a wholly implausible reading, but one might ask why the Framers did not simply say something like "Congress shall have no power to prohibit state-organized and directed militias." Perhaps they in fact meant to do something else. Moreover, we might ask if ordinary readers of the late 18th Century legal prose would have interpreted it as meaning something else. The text at best provides only a starting point for a conversation. In this specific instance, it does not come close to resolving the questions posed by federal regulation of arms. Even if we accept the preamble as significant, we must still try to figure out what might be suggested by guaranteeing to "the people the right to keep and bear arms;" moreover, as we shall see presently, even the preamble presents unexpected difficulties in interpretation.


It seems that "translation" is in the eye of the beholder. My opinion is that the founding fathers intended for the individual citizen to bear arms as an insurance that the other freedoms guaranteed by the constitution not be violated. For those that think these allowable weapons would not affect a tyrannical government armed with drones and nuclear devices: Sanford Levinson, again:

The private keeping of hand-held personal firearms is within the constitutional design for a counter to government run amok... As the Tianamen Square tragedy showed so graphically, AK 47's fall into that category of weapons, and that is why they are protected by the Second Amendment." [95] It is simply silly to respond that small arms are irrelevant against nuclear armed states; Witness contemporary Northern Ireland and the territories occupied by Israel, where the sophisticated weaponry of Great Britain and Israel have proved almost totally beside the point. The fact that these may not be pleasant examples does not affect the principal point, that a state facing a totally disarmed population is in a far better position, for good or ill, to suppress popular demonstrations and uprisings than one that must calculate the possibilities of its soldiers and officials being injured or killed.

[frankenbeemer]

Slightly OT here, but I had an interesting realization while reading this thread.

In every country where the US has 'set up' a government after some kind of war or collapse (Japan, W Germany, Iraq, Afghanistan, etc) we have never once instituted a Republican Democracy such as we have here. Every government we've ever set up has been a Parliamentary Democracy such as England, Australia, and nearly every other democratic state on earth. That strikes me as odd. If you believe what many on the political right believe, that we are the greatest nation in the history of the world, then why would we shy away from our own form of government?

By the way, this is a damn good question. It's also much more on topic than my post above. Unfortunately, I have nothing to contribute on the subject, but it deserves further inquiry.

[Dozyproductions]

I was being sarcastic

Was that pointed towards me? I wasn't though ;)


The thought though is that perhaps our constitution has already been suspended with passing of so many executive orders and Patriot act v1, v2.

^a bit over dramatic^

[BraveUlysses]

By the way, this is a damn good question. It's also much more on topic than my post above. Unfortunately, I have nothing to contribute on the subject, but it deserves further inquiry.

I mentioned it on the first page but of course sleeve didn't read it or if he did, didn't acknowledge it.

[naplesE30]

Slightly OT here, but I had an interesting realization while reading this thread.

In every country where the US has 'set up' a government after some kind of war or collapse (Japan, W Germany, Iraq, Afghanistan, etc) we have never once instituted a Republican Democracy such as we have here. Every government we've ever set up has been a Parliamentary Democracy such as England, Australia, and nearly every other democratic state on earth. That strikes me as odd. If you believe what many on the political right believe, that we are the greatest nation in the history of the world, then why would we shy away from our own form of government?

By the way, this is a damn good question. It's also much more on topic than my post above. Unfortunately, I have nothing to contribute on the subject, but it deserves further inquiry.

You really cant figure out why a govt which increasingly exceeds it authority with patriot act, disregaurd of the 10th amnd, hate speech sensorship etc etc etc would set up other forms of gov which centralizes and gives greater authority to the govt and is easier to not only influence but control..... hmmm geese why would they do that?

Gosh it almost seems like they are on the slow road to transforming this system into the same,,,, it must be for our own good. How nice and thoughtfull they are to take away and infringe on freedoms, for who knows how we might hurt ourselves with them?

[CorvallisBMW]

Apparently history isn't "the real world".

Oh that's right, how could I forget the true underlying argument of the Right:

Obama is Hitler.

Makes sense now.

[2761377]

Slightly OT here, but I had an interesting realization while reading this thread.

In every country where the US has 'set up' a government after some kind of war or collapse (Japan, W Germany, Iraq, Afghanistan, etc) we have never once instituted a Republican Democracy such as we have here. Every government we've ever set up has been a Parliamentary Democracy such as England, Australia, and nearly every other democratic state on earth. That strikes me as odd. If you believe what many on the political right believe, that we are the greatest nation in the history of the world, then why would we shy away from our own form of government?

Practicality. Consider parliamentarian government as a suit off the rack. Just put it on and go.

Conversely, our odd republican government was formed to function in our unique situation at the time. Widely dispersed population of diverse religious, cultural and political backgrounds and economic models. Remember, each state/colony thought of itself as independent.

The Constitution was of course the second attempt to federalize the states into a single country and it took brilliant, native statesmen several years to negotiate the deal. This kind of 'tailoring' is not the place of an outside power, but must be accomplished by the people to be governed. Remember " Of, By and For"

Additionally, in the scenario of Germany parliamentary institutions already existed.

hth
robert w.