Ptooey! on the 2nd Amendment

Lew Rockwell ^ | 13 November 2003 | Brad Edmonds

[NRA2BFree]

Can I get an amen brothers and sisters?

Indeed you can! A big AMEN because I think he's right!

[NRA2BFree]

Ping!

[HEY4QDEMS]

For instance, exactly where does it give the government the power to make a drug illegal?

Thats easy, unless it's a Federal law, the constitution clearly grants States the right to pass their own laws.

That's the same as saying where exactly does it say in the Constitution that you can't commit armed robbery or murder.

The seperation of powers is the key, that is why all am always troubled by federal laws that are not related to judicial conduct or the military as I feel that such laws are not constitutional.

Take Canada for instance, when it was granted Dominion, it modeled itself on some levels to the US constitution, especially the seperation of powers. This was great because the Provincial powers recently woke up and told Ottawa to take its Federal gun registry and stick it where the sun don't shine.

[looscnnn]

I know that the Consititution protects and affirms the rights we have, I was taught that a long time ago. What I was trying to say is that if our rights were not written down to protect and affirm, they would have been trampled a long, long time ago.

[Dead Corpse]

Stay focused. We are talking about the FedGov here, not the States. The BATFE and DEA are not State agencies and the laws they are tasked to uphold are not State laws.

Care to try again?

[Dead Corpse]

Or, we could have worried less about our ennumerated Rights, and just focused on making sure the government didn't snatch more power than was specificly delegated to it.

Six of one, half dozen of the other. What is important is that people finnally get mad enough about it to reign in government. Before things get to a breaking point would be preferable...

[Spok]

"Rely instead on your natural right to self-defense, and when California (or whoever) tells you to start registering weapons so they can come back in two years and confiscate them, the first thing to do is to go live somewhere else."

Exactly. The growth of a totalitarian government cannot be stopped by words written on a piece of paper. Only the willingness and ability to enforce those words gives them substance.

[HEY4QDEMS]

Care to try again?

No

You asked where in the Constitution does the Government have the right to make drugs illegal, and I told you.

There are federal drug enforcement agencies but if a new drug was created today it would be 100% legal until laws were made to change it

[TexasRepublic]

... and when California (or whoever) tells you to start registering weapons so they can come back in two years and confiscate them, the first thing to do is to go live somewhere else.

That is not a long-term solution. You can't run away forever. What happens if all 50 states became equally repressive? I can't think of any foreign country I want to live in. When I'm backed into a corner, you can damn well bet I will come out swinging.

[headsonpikes]

Look for the origin of the 2nd Amendment in England's Bill of Right in 1689.

That right is squarely founded in the right to resist and overthrow a tyrant.

Sovereignty ultimately resides in the people.

[Dead Corpse]

If a new drug was created today, it would have to go through a thousand and one legal hurdles before it ever made it to market. All of them Federal.

Government does not HAVE Rights, they have delegated and enumerated powers. Only people have Rights. Monitoring what people put in their bodies is not a power delegated to the Federal Government by the Constitution.

Ergo, they do not have the power to even CREATE, legally speaking, a drug enforcement agency nor any of the laws said agency was created to enforce. Only by completely twisting the original meaning of the "general welfare" and "interstate commerce" clauses of the Constitution have they been able to get this past the courts. Activist judges and overbearing legislators are the downfall or our Nation, every bit as much as complacent attitudes and willful ignorance of the populace.

The very same attitude in government that created that particularly noxious $40 billion a year beheamoth, are also taking shots at our self defense rights, property rights, speech rights, and our right to express our religious beliefs without fear of reprisal. It is all symptomatic of a general malaise.

[Gorjus]

You're still missing the point. Walter Williams posed a premise. "If 'X', then 'Y.'" You are saying, "But I do not agree to 'X'." Okay, don't. You have now headed off on another topic, and you're welcome to do so.

However, in rejecting 'X' even as a premise (the premise that some might think rights are 'granted' by the government), you're assuming a very dangerous situation - that the premise is so false it doesn't even need to be considered.

Would that it were so. But there are lots and lots of people who think not only that rights are 'granted' by government, but that it should be that way. And IF that is (or ever becomes) the case, then a list of enumerated rights is very dangerous, because all unenumerated rights reside in government, instead of in the people. Perhaps, just perhaps, it would be better not to start down that potentially slippery slope by enumerating any rights in order to make it clear there is no possible basis for drawing a line between one group of rights and another.

Now, having addressed the logical problem raised by Williams, I will offer my own position. We're better off having a list, because people are generally not motivated enough to see things logically. As a result, the statists who lust for power will enslave us utterly unless there is at least some unignorable list of rights.

To use your own example, you (meaning the generic, 'one') didn't really have a 'right' to Xstacy, because the government decided you couldn't have access to it and they can't take away your rights. That you did have access for a while didn't make it a right, just a fact. If you murder someone, that is a fact, not a right, even if you do it before the government gets around to preventing you.

Final point. The 9th Amendment was really intended as a limit on Federal power, but I'll even accept your statement that it was 'designed to be a catch all that makes all things legal unless laws are made to the contrary' as being close enough. However, just because it was 'designed' that way, doesn't mean it will automatically function that way. Even Robert Bork (during the hearings in which he was 'borked') said he thought the 10th Amendment was essentially moot. That 'right' went away despite being written down. And so the 9th Amendment, regardless of intent or 'design' is not protection if people think rights are 'granted' by the government.

[HEY4QDEMS]

Monitoring what people put in their bodies is not a power delegated to the Federal Government by the Constitution.

That's exactly what I said.

Am I missing something???

Getting back on subject, Having an enumerated right to play hopscotch, does not in any way disparage or deny my right to play jacks.

I have read and re-read the statement in the article three times because posters here have told me that I had taken this observation out of context. I don't see it. It appears to me, he is saying that by enumerating rights, rights not enumerated are denied which flies right in the face of the Ninth Amendment.

[George Smiley]

Walter Williams said "if you are granted by your government the right to play hopscotch, that means you have no particular right to play jacks."

Amendment IX

The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

Walter Williams is an idiot.

Walter Williams is by no means an idiot.

Walter Williams is, however, an experienced classroom lecturer and (sometimes sub for Rush) who has developed the habit of using outrageous statements to get the blood to flow above the neckline of those who otherwise might not be paying attention.

He's also funny as hell sometimes.

And you've proven that his technique works even when he's only indirectly quoted.

[Centurion2000]

bump

[George Smiley]

Sent this link to Dr. Williams-

Apparently he dropped by and had a look-

:^)

-----Original Message-----
From: wwi---am@gmu.edu [mailto:wwi---am@gmu.edu]
Sent: Friday, November 14, 2003 5:24 PM
To:
Subject: Re: Guy had the nerve to call you an idiot on this thread;
thought you'd get a kick out of the defenders who came out of the
woodwork to call him on it.


Thanks for the compliments and the interesting dialogue.
Cheers and keep up the struggle.

Professor Walter E. Williams
George Mason University
Department of Economics
4400 University Dr., MSN 3G4
Fairfax, Virginia 22030

[Oztrich Boy]

If the amendments had not be written down, we would have had guns and free speech taken away a long time ago.

Absolutely, however nice William's arguments sound in theory, the reality can be seen by comparing present day USA and the UK.

The FF had no thought of introducing anything new, but were only setting on parchment the 1000 year old English tradition that the national army of England consisted of all freemen between the ages of sixteen and sixty.

England had the same notion in the 1689 Bill of Rights, but unfortunately left Parliment more room to modify it.

[TERMINATTOR]

The Ninth Amendment prohibits so called "laws" that aim to infringe on unenumerated rights. Such legislation is itself illegal, and NOT law. Law abiding citizens should ignore all such bad legislation.

[archy]

"At this time, it is obvious that all levels of government in the US view individual rights as things that exist only because government says so. Our government today has no interest in what "natural rights" are, or what people morally ought to be allowed to do for themselves. Those cities that have strict gun-control laws believe their low level of government has the right to abridge our most fundamental right of self-defense."

And therein lies the problem; if even the lowliest levels of government can so blithely ignore and infringe such a basic right as that of self defense, then in what kind of contempt do they hold liberty itself? Their attitude pits citizen against government at all levels under all circumstances. Is this not the definition of tyranny?

If they wish to attempt to deny my rights listed by the Second Amendment, the contract between governed and government, fine. Turn about is fair play, so in retaliation, they lose all their powers and priviledges under Article II of the constitution, so far as I'm concerned.

Tinker with the First Amendment, and I'll reject the legitimacy of Article I just as quickly. And I'll work at finding something with which to replace them, if that's how they want to play.

U.S. Constitution, Article II [Section I]

Section 1. The executive power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America. He shall hold his office during the term of four years, and, together with the Vice President, chosen for the same term, be elected, as follows:

Each state shall appoint, in such manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a number of electors, equal to the whole number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress: but no Senator or Representative, or person holding an office of trust or profit under the United States, shall be appointed an elector.

The electors shall meet in their respective states, and vote by ballot for two persons, of whom one at least shall not be an inhabitant of the same state with themselves. And they shall make a list of all the persons voted for, and of the number of votes for each; which list they shall sign and certify, and transmit sealed to the seat of the government of the United States, directed to the President of the Senate. The President of the Senate shall, in the presence of the Senate and House of Representatives, open all the certificates, and the votes shall then be counted. The person having the greatest number of votes shall be the President, if such number be a majority of the whole number of electors appointed; and if there be more than one who have such majority, and have an equal number of votes, then the House of Representatives shall immediately choose by ballot one of them for President; and if no person have a majority, then from the five highest on the list the said House shall in like manner choose the President. But in choosing the President, the votes shall be taken by States, the representation from each state having one vote; A quorum for this purpose shall consist of a member or members from two thirds of the states, and a majority of all the states shall be necessary to a choice. In every case, after the choice of the President, the person having the greatest number of votes of the electors shall be the Vice President. But if there should remain two or more who have equal votes, the Senate shall choose from them by ballot the Vice President.

The Congress may determine the time of choosing the electors, and the day on which they shall give their votes; which day shall be the same throughout the United States.

No person except a natural born citizen, or a citizen of the United States, at the time of the adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the office of President; neither shall any person be eligible to that office who shall not have attained to the age of thirty five years, and been fourteen Years a resident within the United States.

In case of the removal of the President from office, or of his death, resignation, or inability to discharge the powers and duties of the said office, the same shall devolve on the Vice President, and the Congress may by law provide for the case of removal, death, resignation or inability, both of the President and Vice President, declaring what officer shall then act as President, and such officer shall act accordingly, until the disability be removed, or a President shall be elected.

The President shall, at stated times, receive for his services, a compensation, which shall neither be increased nor diminished during the period for which he shall have been elected, and he shall not receive within that period any other emolument from the United States, or any of them.

Before he enter on the execution of his office, he shall take the following oath or affirmation:--"I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."

[Old Professer]

As he put it, if you are granted by your government the right to play hopscotch, that means you have no particular right to play jacks.

Here in Tennessee it was decided by the state supreme court that rubber ducky races were illegal; since then a referendum authorized a state lottery which has yet to start, but rubber ducky races are still held to be illegal by our AG.