I don't feel like contributing today. ~~~ Wait until you see "Unable to locate server"
I don't have money. ~~~ Help with the fundraiser. Bump the threads, ping your FRiends.
There's plenty of time to donate. ~~~ Bill collectors don't see it that way.
I don't know where to contribute. ~~~ Credit card, mail: FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794 , Paypal: JimRob@psnw.com
I've got too many other things to do first. ~~~ Don't we all?
I can't contribute much, what's five dollars. ~~~ If everyone contributed one dollar a month, we'd never have a fundraiser again.
The dog ate my credit card. ~~~ Shoot the dog.
Just let me finish freeping. ~~~ BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
Don't wait until it's too late. Do it today. Do it now! Before they bring out the cheerleaders! Free Republic is funded solely by us. It's up to us to keep it running. Do your part, contribute if you can. Bump the fundraising threads. Help keep this place alive!
They let the Federal Gun Control laws stand. I might add
contrary to the cheering squad here, the administration
argued in defense of the Federal Gun Control Laws, in
direct conflict with their previous decleration of individual
rights in the second ammendment.
The point is that the Constitution never granted the government the power to write law denying the citizen his individual rights. The Second Amendment was written to protect the citizen’s inherent right to individual gun ownership from government interference. Without the Second Amendment the government still would not have the Constitutional power to write law interfering with the citizen’s individual right to gun ownership. If the First Amendment was not there to protect the citizen’s inherent right to free speech and worship the government still would not have been granted the power to write law that interfered with the citizen’s right to free speech and worship.
A right does not require a reason to be a right. The position that if a valid reason cannot be proffered then the right does not exist is incorrect.
The Second Amendment could have been written “A Sun rising in the east being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.” The individual right to bear arms would still exist. A citizen may exercise his right to gun ownership for the purpose of using the gun for self defense or he may use it for a paperweight if he wishes.
I am fond of this observation of Thomas Jefferson. Thomas Jefferson, by no means an imprecise thinker, was well aware of this consideration. In commenting upon how the Constitution should properly be read, he said: "On every question of construction let us carry ourselves back to the time when the Constitution was adopted, recollect the spirit manifested in the debates, and instead of trying what meaning can be squeezed out of the text, or invented against it, conform to the probable one which was passed.”
At the time of the Constitution, the militia was all able bodied men. Think Lexington and Concord. There was no police force in most of the country, no National Guard and a tiny standing army. Without a personal right to own arms, there would have been no militia.
The collectivist argument is really stupid. The other provisions of the Bill of Rights all deal with personal rights. No amendment of the Constitution would be needed to authorize any state militia to be armed; just as no provision of the Constitution was needed to authorize the arming of the Army and Navy.
But then we're dealing with the federal courts who find rights where the Constitution is silent and disregard plain language where the Constitution is explicit because they view the Constitution as a "living" document; translation, it means what we say it means, not what it says.