Posted on 01/01/2011 6:27:02 AM PST by marktwain
We don’t need liberals telling us what the Constitution says, or should say. The more important question is, where are the liberals and the Left leading us?
The only way that the Second Amendment can be difficult to interpret or understand is if the reader absolutely insists upon grotesquely placing the subordinate clause in a predominant position. Even then, nowhere does the PRE-EXISTENCE of “a well regulated militia” appear as a qualifying condition upon which the public’s right “to keep and bear arms” must depend. End of story. Case closed.
Only the most unscrupulous agenda-driven sophists would even attempt any contrary interpretation. Unfortunately, quite a lot of such creatures circulate among us.
Their 'Bill of Rights' would grant the government spectacular powers to intrude into and regulate the lives of ordinary citizens. It would've codified Government as Parent.
The unwritten subtext of the whole of the Revolution would've been 'We're breaking away from the mother country, because we're not nearly oppressed enough by it; we'll do a much better job of oppressing ourselves'.
Stopped reading right there. Perhaps the author of this piece should have his God-given first amendment rights to freedom of the press "interpreted" the same way he would want to "interpret" away our second amendment rights.
Does Erza Klein fully understand ObamaCare, a 2,000+ page document? Just wondering.... =.=
Look at Alexander Hamilton’s proposed constitution. For him the States were mere historical accidents,like English counties. The Anti-federalists discerned that many other men thought like Hamilton, mostly city men, whose model of good government was monarchy, or a disguised republic like Great Britain. Not all the Tories fled to Upper Canada.
Translation:
It doesn’t say what I want it to say, so we just need to scrap that old, useless, outdated document and come up with a grand, new, glorious one which requires everyone to be subjected to the elitists who are so much smarter and care so much more.
This guy would gladly work with a Goebbels to feather his nest.
Unfortunately we no longer have any constitutional restraints on the power of the US government either. The welfare state has been growing by leaps and bounds here for at least 70 years now. There are just too many people who demand that the government take care of them, and too many of them are cheerfully willing to give up all of their rights if it means getting such care.
Should we allow the government to now dictate Religion, by establishing or outlawing certain faiths?
Maybe let them now deny Free Speech?
Deny the Right to Assemble or Petition?
How about allowing random Search and Seizure?
Deny Due Process? Also Double Jeopardy?
Force Self-Incrimination?
Deny Eminent Domain (one of the liberals' favorite new moves)?
Deny Jury Trials, Public Trials, and Speedy Trials?
Deny the Right to Counsel?
Allow Excessive Bail and Cruel and Unusual Punishment?
House troops in our homes?
Come on, Progressive Folk! Tell us which of those out-dated concepts you need removed from that sad, useless, inapplicable old document!!!
It has been clearly established in numerous papers and articles, but only for one side of the argument. Those who are for the RKBA understand it. Those who are against it, parse the words like a skilled attorney, and demonstrate just as clearly to their base that it does not. Just like any 5-4 decision by SCOTUS, it depends on your foundational beliefs. Truth, logic, and reason can usually be swung either way.
Well I agree with him ,Is He a journalist? I dont believe in Freedom of the Press anymore they should all be arrested and executed
Our Constitution did not arise out of nothing. The 2nd Amendment has quite obvious precedent in the English Bill of Rights that was a result of the Glorious Revolution of 1689.
“That the subjects which are Protestants may have arms for their defence suitable to their conditions and as allowed by law”
This idea was carried over into the 2nd, with of course the religious and class aspects removed, as these were not relevant in America.
IOW, the 2nd was expanding a previously recognized right of Englishmen from upper-class Protestants to the entire People.
In (partial) defense of Hamilton, there is good reason to believe his preference for a stronger executive grew out of a sincere belief that something close to an elective monarchy was necessary if a Republic was not to descend into chaos and fall apart.
Events in France a few years later showed that his concerns were not entirely unfounded.
He turned out to be wrong, but that is no reason to assume his proposals were based solely or even mostly on a lust for personal power.
At least we have something, as old and “unreadable” as it may be
Ezra Klein = God’s gift to right wingers
Erza, dear, it is not a news flash that liberals don’t care about the constitution or the rule of law.
Roe vs Wade ring a bell?
Events in France......
The French Revolution was a temporary descent into chaos and mass murder.. But it was preceded by the centralized administrative state set up by Louis XIV to weaken local autonomy, and was followed by an even more centralized national state under Napoleon and his successors.
That said, in my opinion Hamilton’s desire for a strong federal government probably was more about correcting the excessive looseness of the Articles of Confederation than about what he saw unfolding in France (BTW in any future Anlgo-French conflict, Hamilton favored strict neutrality).
I think Erza is floating a trial balloon that the constitutional requirement for a president to be a natural born citizen is open to interpretation.
I am a birther.
I wasn’t trying to say Hamilton was being prescient about France, only that events years later showed that he was right to be concerned about a Republic set up with a weak executive. The French Revolution, for most of its existence, had a very weak executive, if any at all.
Which, as you say, led directly to dictatorship.
It is very difficult to draw comparisons between the two revolutions, as they differed in almost every possible way.
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