Posted on 01/11/2003 10:53:56 PM PST by kattracks
Edited on 07/12/2004 4:00:21 PM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
The worldwide terrorist activity directed from abroad against the United States has given birth to a Homeland Security Department to help fulfill one of the primary responsibilities of government
(Excerpt) Read more at washtimes.com ...
There is at least one thing that I can entertain slight agreement on with the good doctor. There is a certain appeal to an atmosphere where lying, deciet and deliberate distortions would be dealt with by public canings on the bare bottom.
The left would like to have Singaporian justice would they? How do the Singapore police deal with those who protest government policy? Do they tolerate editorials that contradict their founding documents or the rulings of their highest court?
Perhaps that's really part of the plan. Redefining 'the people' in the 2nd Amendment seems to only gore the ox of gun owners and specifically pushes into a corner the very people who can fight back. If we fight back we will be further isolated psychologically from the rest of the populace. If the general population can be turned foursquare against guns and gun owners the 2nd Amendment can be defined by the courts as meaning 'the states' and 'the states' only, forevermore, with no significant protest.
The country will be disarmed with the peoples blessing and a precedent will be set. At that point the phrase 'the people' in the Constitution will be deemed to mean 'the state' by precedent. Even the most rabid leftist lawyer who wanted to argue the individual's right to free speech (or even the 'right' to an abortion) will run headlong into that concrete precedent that clearly shows that "the people" means "the state". That there are no individual rights. There will be an outcry you say? "No problem, we (the state) won't let you down. Your rights are secure...in us." The state will then be the arbiter of all rights defining and dispensing everything by Executive Order and judicial ruling.
That is the key to complete control through the Constitution, the redefinition of the phrase "the people" and the key to that is through the 2nd Amendment. It is the weakest link because it is the right of last resort in all situations. It is the most rarely relied upon right and therefore the most removed from daily experience. Being a last resort its application is by nature brutal and ugly to the 'civilized' mind.
Therefore, whatever plans and designs they have which would seriously rile up the gunowners, haven't been clearly revealed.
True but they are walking a fine line here. They want to rile gun owners, just not too much. They will want to push us over the edge at some point in order to prove their point about us. I think they have tried before but, as a whole, we didn't take the bait. But it is all priming the pump to them. I suspect another attempt to trip our trigger soon. That seems to be the premise of Travis' book if I understand correctly.
If the suspicion I put forth in #65 is correct then a 90% +1 vote wouldn't mean squat. Everybody can vote all they want. They can elect anyone they want vote for any law they want. The courts will just overrule their vote, the Executive will rewrite their laws. The courts will install their own pols. Anyone who argues will be denounced as remnants of the 'rightwinggunnut' resistors.
Exactly that situation is covered in my novel. We have seen it in action in various Kali initiatives which passed but were tossed out by courts, then we saw it in the 2000 election in FL, then with Toricelli dropping out in NJ. To a certain extent, judges will just make up the laws, and that is the state of affairs in my novel with the hypothetical Supreme Court holding for a collective interpretation of the 2nd amd.
But they can only do it to a point, before they begin to be over ruled by
"For if they were so received, and entitled to the privileges and immunities of citizens, it would exempt them from the operation of the special laws and from the police regulations which they considered to be necessary for their own safety. It would give to persons of the negro race, who were recognised as citizens in any one State of the Union, the right to enter every other State whenever they pleased, singly or in companies, without pass or passport, and without obstruction, to sojourn there as long as they pleased, to go where they pleased at every hour of the day or night without molestation, unless they committed some violation of law for which a white man would be punished; and it would give them the full liberty of speech in public and in private upon all subjects upon which its own citizens might speak; to hold public meetings upon political affairs, and to keep and carry arms wherever they went.
Justice Taney was arguing here that "Negro" slaves should be subject to special laws and not to have the full rights that were universally recognized for white men. One of these universal rights was to "keep and carry arms wherever they went." The disparity in justice between "negros" and white citizens was corrected by the "Reconstruction Amendments to the Constitution.
"Nor can Congress deny to the people the right to keep and bear arms, nor the right to trial by jury, nor compel any one to be a witness against himself in a criminal proceeding."
Justice Taney did not argue here the right of the government to keep and bear arms, but refered to a set of individual liberties guaranteed under the Constitution. In other parts of this decision, Taney does mention the government's right to regulate and dispose of arm (such as "Ships of War"), but this is not germane to our discussion.
Rule 308 is simple, direct and unappealable. Anyone can invoke it at any time. I have been called to account for some of my more strident postings recently. I understand. But those posts are not meant to intimidate or foment. They are, like your novel, a call to awakening. No one of sound mind wants to invoke rule 308, it will open a floodgate that can't be shut. But it would be well for those who don't think there is water on the other side of that gate to be scared enough to reexamine their assumptions.
Your entire reply is worthy of framing, as it clearly diagrams the methods we have seen repeatedly employed to chip away at the Constitution the last half century or more. Alternating between judicial rulings, legislation, and executive orders and decisions, with occasional bureaucratic rulings pulled out of thin air, the trend has been, overall, toward total statist control.
Although the left has been mostly to blame for this trend, the Republicans have made little or no effort to change direction. Both parties want total control; their contest is mainly about which team gets to crack the whip. The people have had little substantive representation.
Thanks. I appreciate that. It just occurred to me as I was reading posts and came to yours that they have us focused on defending the 2nd Amendment when it is really the entire concept of individual liberty that they are targeting. Without changing a word or a single punctuation mark they will destroy the Constitution by simply redefining one phrase.
They distract and provoke us with threats to eliminate the 2nd and specious arguments about who the 'militia' really is and what arms are acceptable and which aren't. What they really want is the right circumstance to redefine the meaning of 'the people' in a codified way such as a USSC ruling at which point the entire document becomes the manifesto of the state.
By keeping the focus on guns and violence the anti-gun left is just as distracted from the true purpose thinking that the ruling they seek will only effect gun ownership.
All the entitlements they think to be rights will be just as subject to the whims of the state as true natural rights because that one precedent will cover all questions of 'rights' putting all the power to decide in the state.
Public opinion will be meaningless when the state decides who has the right to voice an opinion and who has a right to report it. They will placate the masses with a pretense of input and then state 'experts' will explain the meaning of their input.
Ahgh! Enough, I'm tired and rambling. MOLON LABE!
How comical that he would have that last name and be a gun grabber! Doesn't he KNOW?!?
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