Capitol Police Arrest Man with Rifle (Said He Had Delivery for Obama)

myFox ^

[Huck]

Wanted to chime in on the violence/ideas debate going on here...

First, the American Revolution, blood and all, officially began with the Declaration of Independence. So it wasn't the Constitution--which came several years later--that justified the cause, it was the Declaration. Ideas and arms were linked from the beginning.

Second, while it is true that the Constitution provides peaceful means for appeal, even the sober Madison acknowledges what he called the "ultima ratio". From a letter in 1830 regarding the Nullification crisis:

And in the event of a failure of every constitutional resort, and an accumulation of usurpations and abuses, rendering passive obedience and non-resistance a greater evil than resistance and revolution, there can remain but one resort, the last of all; an appeal from the cancelled obligations. of the constitutional compact to original rights and the law of self-preservation. This is the ultima ratio under all governments, whether consolidated, confederated, or a compound of both; and it cannot be doubted that a single member of the Union, in the extremity supposed, but in that only, would have a right, as an extra and ultra-constitutional right, to make the appeal.

There is no getting around the fact that at some point, ANY gubmint, of any form ("whether consolidated, confederated..") can become so abusive that an appeal to "original rights" and "the laws of self-preservation" is justified.

So, lastly, the question ultimately is a judgement call about how much abuse is too much abuse. And here he is saying that while UNDER the Constutition a single state has no right to nullify a law obeyed by a majority of states. , in the face of intolerable abuses, it DOES have the right to go it alone in total defiance/self-preservation--the last resort--ultima ratio.

And I have to agree with the posters emphasizing that the war itself is definitely part of the miracle of our nation's birth. It produced George Washington, for one thing. The two are linked. The risk involved was part of the whole enterprise. It wasn't just ideas. It was ideas great men were willing to risk their lives for.

"Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery?"

"We pledge our lives, our fortunes, our sacred honor"

"Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as FREEDOM should not be highly rated."

[Lazamataz]

We don’t support that even in jest here.

We ingest in jest.