General
04 Aug 19
@eladar saidAll you are doing is calling me names.
Lol you are such a prick. "All I did..."
Was be a total jackass. It is a good thing you have the internet to give the people in your life a break.
The question about your belief regarding the implications of the 2nd amendment for you is still danging there, unanswered.
11 Aug 19
@eladar saidIt all reduces to toilets for you, doesn't it?
You must be one who believes 8 year old girls should share a public restroom with men who claim to be feeling like a woman.
Oh yeah same thing goes at schools. If a boy feels like a girl that day he can just walk right into the girl's bathroom.
You're so hung up, you can't even call it a toilet. No one takes a bath in those places, you know.
@eladar said"The House has the power of the purse." Except when the president declares a national security emergency, does an end-run around Congress, and appropriates military funds to build a wall.
The House has the power of the purse.
Checks and Balances only works if each member does its job. Seeing how the House has handed the executive branch so much power with things like the EPA and the Wars Power Act, the Presidency is more like a dictatorship.
This government is far from what it is supposed to be.
"Checks and Balances only works if each member does its job." Including a president who acknowledges that his power is limited by checks and balances. Trump evidently thinks he can do as he pleases.
@eladar saidThere is an alternative explanation for the inclusion of the right to keep and bear arms: at that time, the fledgling U.S. govt had no resources to maintain a standing army or navy; moreover, there were professionally-trained military forces on the ground in the territory (Spain, France, etc.); moreover, it was not certain that the new state would be recognised by foreign powers.
I am saying it was put in there to ensure it is possible.
How do you think the US came into being? Citizens taking up arms against an unjust government!
In those circumstances, it made sense to require of citizens that they stand ready to defend the borders against foreign powers on a minute's notice, and that citizens should provide their own kit (given that the U.S. govt at that time could not afford to provide kit). Hence, a citizen militia was called upon to defend the borders.
The idea that citizens should be called upon to put down their own newly founded govt by force of arms contradicts the entire project of setting up a tripartite democracy with a weak presidency and checks and balances. This new form of govt was designed in such a way that that would not be necessary.
@moonbus said
There is an alternative explanation for the inclusion of the right to keep and bear arms: at that time, the fledgling U.S. govt had no resources to maintain a standing army or navy; moreover, there were professionally-trained military forces on the ground in the territory (Spain, France, etc.); moreover, it was not certain that the new state would be recognised by foreign pow ...[text shortened]... balances. This new form of govt was designed in such a way that that would not be necessary.
There is an alternative explanation for the inclusion of the right to keep and bear arms: at that time, the fledgeling U.S. govt had no resources to maintain a standing army or navy; moreover, there were professionally-trained military forces on the ground in the territory (Spain, France, etc.); moreover, it was not certain that the new state would be recognised by foreign powers.
In those circumstances, it made sense to require of citizens that they stand ready to defend the borders against foreign powers on a minute's notice and that citizens should provide their own kit (given that the U.S. govt at that time could not afford to provide kit). Hence, a citizen militia was called upon to defend the borders.
Bingo.
As the 2nd amendment so obviously says:
"A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."
So...
"[...] the right of the people to keep and bear Arms..." has a clear and specific context.
11 Aug 19
@fmf saidSomehow, Eladar ~ who boasts of having access to semi-automatic assault weapons ~ bases his justification and endorsement of the murder of 20+ law-abiding citizens in a branch of Wallmart on his beyond-parody 'interpretation of this sentence.
"A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."
Let's hope, if Trump can bring about some of the reforms he has spoken about, that people like Eladar - whoever he is in real life - can get "red-flagged" for the support-for-mass-murder type things they say when they are using social media like this website.
11 Aug 19
2 edits
@fmf saidYes. It is significant that no other right enumerated in the BoR is prefaced by any sort of explanation equivalent to "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, ..." The rights to freedom of speech, press, religion, speedy trials, etc. have no such preface. The right to keep and bear arms is conditional upon the need for something to perform the function of a standing army (which was lacking at that time) and therefore lapsed as soon as a standing army was instituted which was capable of defending the borders.
[quote]There is an alternative explanation for the inclusion of the right to keep and bear arms: at that time, the fledgeling U.S. govt had no resources to maintain a standing army or navy; moreover, there were professionally-trained military forces on the ground in the territory (Spain, France, etc.); moreover, it was not certain that the new state would be recognised by foreign ...[text shortened]...
"[...] the right of the people to keep and bear Arms..." has a clear and specific context.
Eladar's and the NRA's argument, that the right to keep and bear arms applied to a need to overthrow their own govt, makes no sense. There was no need for citizens to put down their own newly founded govt by force of arms when that govt itself had no arms (no standing army, no navy, not even police).
11 Aug 19
@moonbus saidThat's why Eladar has spat the dummy having been asked a straightforward question about his "argument".
Eladar's and the NRA's argument, that the right to keep and bear arms applied to a need to overthrow their own govt, makes no sense.
No one from the NRA would have said some of the things that Eladar said on the first few pages of this thread.
@Very-Rusty
Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. ~ Dwight D. Eisenhower
11 Aug 19
@fmf saidThe authors of the U.S. Constitution and BoR were educated men who chose their words very carefully. In order for Eladar's interpretation to be plausible, the 2d Amendment would have to have been formulated something like this: "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of the people FROM a State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."
That's why Eladar has spat the dummy having been asked a straightforward question about his "argument".
No one from the NRA would have said some of the things that Eladar said on the first few pages of this thread.
But that is not what the amendment says. It says "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security OF a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." The meaning is clearly that it is the security of the state which a citizen militia is supposed to guarantee (in the absence of a standing army), not the security of citizens against their own govt.
11 Aug 19
@moonbus saidThe strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government."
The authors of the U.S. Constitution and BoR were educated men who chose their words very carefully. In order for Eladar's interpretation to be plausible, the 2d Amendment would have to have been formulated something like this: "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of the people FROM a State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be inf ...[text shortened]... guarantee (in the absence of a standing army), not the security of citizens against their own govt.
Do you know who said that?
@Ghost-of-a-Duke
Your ignorance is certainly telling. I am sure you are not alone in your ignorance yet all of you believe your uneducated opinion is actually worth something.