Post #212,906
6/28/05 5:16:23 PM
|
My last on this. And I don't think you can argue this point.
The people are allowed to own firearms only to afford a state the opportunity to protect itself. I'd argue that amendment 2 is no longer necessary since the states all have their own militia which they themselves arm now. The intent of 2 was to ensure that states could arm their own militias. Once the states became wealthy enough (through taxation) to arm their own militias directly, there's no longer a need for private ownership as described in 2.
bcnu,
Mikem
It would seem, therefore, that the three human impulses embodied in religion are fear, conceit, and hatred. The purpose of religion, one might say, is to give an air of respectibility to these passions. -- Bertrand Russell
|
Post #212,911
6/28/05 5:59:13 PM
|
I think you're wrong about this.
Not to jump on a dying thread ... well, yes to jump on a dying thread. The people are allowed to own firearms only to afford a state the opportunity to protect itself. I think you're making a leap there. Recall that there was a US government before the Constitution. Also recall that there were state militias long before the Constitution. E.g. [link|http://www.u-s-history.com/pages/h1191.html|here]: Following distinguished service with Braddock, George Washington was appointed colonel and commander of the Virginia militia forces in 1756. The 23-year-old was assigned responsibility for protecting the vast frontier from Indian attack. This area was outside of the main theaters of war and the major decisions were made by British officers and officials.
Nevertheless, the future commander of the Continental Army faced a challenging experience. Independent-minded militiamen presented frequent discipline problems. Washington established his authority by ordering the flogging of recalcitrant soldiers and the hanging of several deserters. He also had to cope with the undependability of the Virginia assembly, which was slow to provide supplies and pay for the soldiers; even when the money arrived, the colony regularly paid at a lower scale than its neighbors \ufffd a fact that did much to undermine morale. It's clear that the colonies were funding (at least partially) their militias before the Constitution. [link|http://www.usconstitution.net/articles.html#Article3|Article 3] of the Articles of Confederation supports your view of the 2nd Amendment, but note that the words are very different: No vessel of war shall be kept up in time of peace by any State, except such number only, as shall be deemed necessary by the United States in Congress assembled, for the defense of such State, or its trade; nor shall any body of forces be kept up by any State in time of peace, except such number only, as in the judgement of the United States in Congress assembled, shall be deemed requisite to garrison the forts necessary for the defense of such State; but every State shall always keep up a well-regulated and disciplined militia, sufficiently armed and accoutered, and shall provide and constantly have ready for use, in public stores, a due number of filed pieces and tents, and a proper quantity of arms, ammunition and camp equipage. If the 2nd Amendment was to apply to the States and not to the People, why was the wording changed from what was given above? Cheers, Scott.
|
Post #212,927
6/28/05 8:15:26 PM
6/28/05 8:18:42 PM
|
Sure I can.
And the purpose of the amendment isn't done. In no particular order: - Because the very people of this country are armed, even should our government's armed forces be defeated, the very people would also have to be conquered. That's the way it was then, that's the way it is now. You think Iraq is bad? Imagine say, Chinese troops trying to take West Virginia, for example. Don't say 'that can't happen here'; an economic collapse, nuclear conflict and major defeat could make it happen. Our militia puts most armies to shame.
- Part of the reason for amendment 2 was a profound distrust of the Federal government. The people didn't want the Fed to become an oppressor. Your own desire to accumulate arms in the face of the (very) possible coming storm speaks to that.
- Another reason for the amendment was the lack of any police; especially in rural areas. Even today, the police have been absolved of the requirement to uphold the law. Removing effective self-defense from the law-abiding was simply NOT acceptable to the people then, neither is it today. (the presence of the NRA - an enormous, member-supported organisaton dedicated to preventing folk like you from instituting a police state shows THAT) When the choice was made between a police-state and people able to defend themselves, people chose to defend themselves, again due to a profound distrust of government to look after their own interests. I do not think that a reversal of that decision is warranted today.
In short, it's not obsolete; the nature of man has NOT changed - it's a necessary right to ensure the security of a free state. [link|http://www.runningworks.com|
] Imric's Tips for Living
- Paranoia Is a Survival Trait
- Pessimists are never disappointed - but sometimes, if they are very lucky, they can be pleasantly surprised...
- Even though everyone is out to get you, it doesn't matter unless you let them win.
|
Nothing is as simple as it seems in the beginning,
As hopeless as it seems in the middle,
Or as finished as it seems in the end.
|
Edited by imric
June 28, 2005, 08:18:42 PM EDT
|
Post #212,938
6/28/05 9:49:30 PM
|
By all means.. Go For It
Do Plan for the final complete unravelling, so that you can keep up a cyclic rate-of-fire to the very end, with your clip-fed, gas-operated semiautomatic weapon. cha cha cha.
Y E S Be Prepared every waking hour, 'cause You. Never. Know.
(Surely - this denouement too! was envisioned by the Constitutional Convention; their prescience extended right Out There ----> to the rise of the inevitable Corporatocracy, via the suborning of 'the people's' representatives.)
Surely reeled off, too: the military theological industrial complex du jour.
Yup, they fully grokked i=i0ekT
It seems that Ben F ackshully Did foresee the temporariness; assigned an exact reason for denouement: ~the corruption of the people.. What a prophet!
Oh - the Yellow Hordes? Piece of cake. Everyone Will want what We Gots. Plan for it.
By all means: one must be Armed 24/7.
It's the Only way to be Sure thus 'Secure'.
How could I have missed.. the entire zeitgeist!?
I have miserably failed.. to Love the Gun.
Maybe I can atone.. help get those Breeder reactors going! Soon.
|
Post #212,948
6/28/05 11:06:10 PM
6/28/05 11:10:53 PM
|
Funny, Ash.
It wasn't the Chinese they forsaw, but the need to be able defend oneself and one's country, and not to depend on others to do it for you at all times.
To be prepared is to NOT be a victim. It does NOT mean you live in fear, or are in any way psycho, as you are wont to insist.
To have a gun does not necessitate it's use.
But enjoy your strawmen. Enjoy your fantasies. Enjoy your dependency.
But DON'T insist that your short-sighted 'wisdom' be forced on everybody else.
[link|http://www.runningworks.com|
] Imric's Tips for Living
- Paranoia Is a Survival Trait
- Pessimists are never disappointed - but sometimes, if they are very lucky, they can be pleasantly surprised...
- Even though everyone is out to get you, it doesn't matter unless you let them win.
|
Nothing is as simple as it seems in the beginning,
As hopeless as it seems in the middle,
Or as finished as it seems in the end.
|
Edited by imric
June 28, 2005, 11:10:53 PM EDT
|
Post #212,952
6/28/05 11:25:17 PM
|
in a pinch Ashton is not unarmed, he just regrets the need
All tribal myths are true, for a given value of "true" Terry Pratchett
[link|http://boxleys.blogspot.com/|http://boxleys.blogspot.com/]
Any opinions expressed by me are mine alone, posted from my home computer, on my own time as a free american and do not reflect the opinions of any person or company that I have had professional relations with in the past 49 years. meep
questions, help? [link|mailto:pappas@catholic.org|email pappas at catholic.org]
|
Post #212,963
6/29/05 12:58:05 AM
|
Regrets the need?
So do I - how nice it would be, if humans didn't use guns on eachother... But then, if that were so, then it wouldn't be an issue, would it? Then what harm a to have a gun?
He owns guns, but cries out against the very right to own them? Really?
If this is so - well, I'm taken aback.
Ashton?
[link|http://www.runningworks.com|
] Imric's Tips for Living
- Paranoia Is a Survival Trait
- Pessimists are never disappointed - but sometimes, if they are very lucky, they can be pleasantly surprised...
- Even though everyone is out to get you, it doesn't matter unless you let them win.
|
Nothing is as simple as it seems in the beginning,
As hopeless as it seems in the middle,
Or as finished as it seems in the end.
|
|
Post #212,966
6/29/05 2:33:24 AM
|
You aren't really going to get it, are you?
You two are f u n n y! thoughti'ddie ..
Use the ..pry outta my cold dead hands a lot, too?
Think 'NRA' Doesn't refer to the National Recovery Act, and that poor 'ol Charlatan Heston has something to do with it?
You will dismiss the entire mindset of feeling needing-to-be-Armed, as if that choice had no effect upon your entire life habits. (And you're quite Sure that it does not.)
re that, then: never. mind.
Deciding not to let guns be a part of my existence does not mean I am ignorant of same. Military school. There were guns there. I know how to use them.
It needs minimal dexterity or IQ (that might even be an asset, if not an absolute requirement?)
Can field strip an M1 and maybe still (?) a .45 I did alright on those little paper targets, but never killed a boar (however tempted re some bores) - nor join the 'hunting' 'sport' thing.
Onward Xian soldiers just never made my Hit Parade.
Was Jesus Armed? So who wrote that bloody anthem, anyway?
..marching as to War. Oh YEAH! Bring it On, Baby! We'uns Love (the sinner) but We'uns Hates the ___ turn-the-Other-cheek cha cha
Hopelessly muddled, we see.
Did chemistry. I also know what's in my Toxicology manual, and how to make phlogiston; talk about yer incendiary devices. So? Knowledge is power. But preoccupation with threat-checklists is psychic illness IMO.
Sometimes such illnesses pervade an entire population - y'know? Just as does cancer. (Greed, etc.)
Wonder if there's any synchronicity Guns <-> Cancer in the larger Scheme?
I'm not about to join the fantasy train which supposes that wandering around packing heat - is gonna Save me from things that go bump in the night.
I also don't live in one of our countless urban decayed zones (our most predictable Homeland Product?) - rendering the matter moot, anyway.
As to what I might.?. do, when the thin veneer of 'civil' yields to the collective inner spoiled-brat, on a large scale - in a culture which has become accustomed / feeling entitled! to using 25% of the world's resources (for generations) ..
Did I detect a hint of that wondering in your stereotypical \ufffdHuh!? - at the thought that I just might know how a stupid fucking gun works?
(Anyone who answers such a question in-advance, is dumber than the asker.)
See ya on the barricades; well... depending on what they think they're fighting for/against, natch.
moi
|
Post #212,975
6/29/05 7:09:04 AM
|
Silly boy.
Knowledge of guns means nothing - if you can't get one if you need it.
And understand, the tool may be necessary one day.
And guns part of my life? Whaddya think - I take it out and fondle it daily? Think about it even - often? That I sleep with it under my pillow? ROFL. I do enjoy shooting - but I haven't even done that in a long time. I chased a burglar out of the house with a shotgun once. And funny - I didn't need to shoot him - and a cop would have taken a long time to get there. It did, literally save me from things that go bump in the night.
Because I want to be able to defend myself - as is my right - does not make me a slavering violence junkie; no, that's YOUR fantasy.
As to the 'Xian' dig. Well - I'm not a martyr.
Your knowledge of chemstry is fine - Knowledge IS power. It's irrelevant to this discussion, though - unless YOU keep bombs or poisons ready for use... In which case your paranoia exceeds mine.
Enough.
[link|http://www.runningworks.com|
] Imric's Tips for Living
- Paranoia Is a Survival Trait
- Pessimists are never disappointed - but sometimes, if they are very lucky, they can be pleasantly surprised...
- Even though everyone is out to get you, it doesn't matter unless you let them win.
|
Nothing is as simple as it seems in the beginning,
As hopeless as it seems in the middle,
Or as finished as it seems in the end.
|
|
Post #213,094
6/29/05 5:04:10 PM
|
{chortle} Thanks for playing.
C'mon Skip -- the implications of ideas of 'security' and of 'guns' (+ variants) is as old as (in that Other field guaranteed to mangle language beyond any possibility of using it for actual communication) ~~
If you can control the meaning of words, you can control the people who must use the words.
-- Philip K. Dick
PLUS
It would seem, therefore, that the three human impulses embodied in religion are fear, conceit, and hatred. The purpose of religion, one might say, is to give an air of respectability to these passions.
-- Bertrand Russell
Ergo, somewhere-along-the-Way - One makes a choice; most often it seems not-preceeded by much internal thrashing; though 'unconsciously' is not remotely an apt description either:
Be manipulated by infinite imaginations of fearful Possibilities?
And. take. steps. to. anticipate. them. all.
OR
Just Live. Notice as prudence demands / ie don't be Stupid - as is beneath a sentient Being.
So then.. some of us -
A) Eschew taking in impressions of heaped dead burned bodies with close-up Colour views of .44 Magnum holes-in-headremains .. for fucking Entertainment!! yet
[because you Are what Impressions you allow into your jelloware] and
B) -Fully equivalently- refuse to contemplate some Mega-psychopath who counsels His [it's Always a 'He' when you're making-up Megalomaniacs] sheep-creatures to Off a Son; stone-to-death an 'Adult'-erer or else: burn in a lake of Phosphorous + salt + {shudder} 140 dB amplified-guitar music -- for weeks & weeks & weeks & weeks & weeks.
Obv neither geo Boole's nor any other cutesy 'logic' recipe shall transcend the gap between the material/literal and the evanescent.. let alone the immanent ephemeral. ie
While ... 'guns' can be interesting mechanisms, as is a combine harvester or a Bach Stradivarius cornet - each one carries with it its Purpose 24/7. And each carrier of a gun has decided Not to take the Chance -???- that s/he won't get outta this thing Alive unless ready to Kill. Anytime. 24/7. Now.. the Purpose of a book is ~~
Let me not to the marriage of true minds
\tAdmit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
\tOr bends with the remover to remove:
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
\tThat looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
\tWhose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
\tWithin his bending sickle's compass come:
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
\tBut bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
\tI never writ, nor no man ever loved.
-- Bard, Sonnet CXVI
I Love Purposeful things. Well, for some.. Purposes.
Screw the other Fear-mongering homo-sap-crafted 'Accessories'
(objects or, hand-crafted Gawds-just-like-us)
-thankyouverymuch-
Cha!
I'm impatient with stupidity. My people have learned to live without it.
-- Michael Rennie as Klaatu
The believer is happy.
The doubter is wise.
|
Post #213,124
6/29/05 9:40:48 PM
|
For Ash, the word "succinct" is blasphemy
I'm not really sure what you are trying to say here. After reading it a couple times, I think it means you are in love with your own ability to string words together.
In other words; What the hell did you just say?
-----------------------------------------
"In this world of sin and sorrow there is always something to be thankful for. As for me, I rejoice that I am not a Republican."
-- H. L. Mencken
Support our troops, Impeach Bush.
D. D. Richards
|
Post #213,127
6/29/05 9:48:02 PM
|
simple he scratches his arse
and declaims that he deplores the need that some folks have to be unable to drink a biscuit and coffee for breakfast unless a 44 caliber revolver has been previously been strapped to their waist in case John Wayne comes back from the dead and declaims "Pussy!"
clear enough?
nother words he doesnt see the personal need but if you get wrangly on him dont expect him to roll over and play Jeraldo
thanx,
bill
All tribal myths are true, for a given value of "true" Terry Pratchett
[link|http://boxleys.blogspot.com/|http://boxleys.blogspot.com/]
Any opinions expressed by me are mine alone, posted from my home computer, on my own time as a free american and do not reflect the opinions of any person or company that I have had professional relations with in the past 49 years. meep
questions, help? [link|mailto:pappas@catholic.org|email pappas at catholic.org]
|
Post #213,129
6/29/05 9:56:45 PM
|
For Box, the word "clarity", no, I won't do it.
-----------------------------------------
"In this world of sin and sorrow there is always something to be thankful for. As for me, I rejoice that I am not a Republican."
-- H. L. Mencken
Support our troops, Impeach Bush.
D. D. Richards
|
Post #213,136
6/29/05 10:42:33 PM
|
Dude, you just did
===
Purveyor of Doc Hope's [link|http://DocHope.com|fresh-baked dog biscuits and pet treats].
[link|http://DocHope.com|http://DocHope.com]
|
Post #213,137
6/29/05 10:47:27 PM
6/29/05 10:47:44 PM
|
Is your it, his it?
I have come to believe that idealism without discipline is a quick road to disaster, while discipline without idealism is pointless. -- Aaron Ward (my brother)
Edited by ben_tilly
June 29, 2005, 10:47:44 PM EDT
|
Post #213,143
6/29/05 11:54:10 PM
|
[Gawd] + [Guns] = will never a sonnet make. (The VB version)
|
Post #213,178
6/30/05 11:16:54 AM
|
Silverlock, when you get Ash and Box in a debate...
...if your Universal Translator (or your Boxlish-to-English and your Ashlish-to-English translator, if you have the older models) is/are not working, you will be in a world of hurt if your goal is to understand the interchange.
If on the other hand, you are simply interested in how English-like words can be strung together in novel and interesting ways, simply lean back, watch and admire....
(In other words, I hear you...)
jb4
shrub\ufffdbish (Am., from shrub + rubbish, after the derisive name for America's 43 president; 2003) n. 1. a form of nonsensical political doubletalk wherein the speaker attempts to defend the indefensible by lying, obfuscation, or otherwise misstating the facts; GIBBERISH. 2. any of a collection of utterances from America's putative 43rd president. cf. BULLSHIT
|
