21–30 of 111 posts
It's not the constitution that makes a country free, but the people fighting for their rights. New Zealand gave women the vote before any other country in the world, and we didn't need a constitution to do it, but rather the willpower of the people.
Unfortunately, pretty much all of the BoR is regularly under attack. Those rights have to be constantly reaffirmed.
On their defense, people mean well, but 'the road to hell did paved with good intentions' as they say. 1st Amendment is being attacked by liberals, with pronoun laws, hate speech regulations, equal opportunity laws, forced cake baking, many other things. The 2nd is also being attacked from a variety of ways by liberals, which as said before, is well intentioned, but ultimately destructive. Thank goodness the 3rd isn'…
I'm not an NRA member, but the idea of repealing the 2nd Amendment, or worse, interpreting it out of existence has bothered me in ways I couldn't quite put my finger on. I finally realized what it was. If we decide one of the rights is "archaic", "obsolete", "insane", or any of the epithets routinely leveled at it, we set a terrible precedent. How long will it be before the rest fall when they are inevitably inconvenient?
We need to stand for all the BoR. Not whatever is convenient.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
On their defense, people mean well, but 'the road to hell did paved with good intentions' as they say. 1st Amendment is being attacked by liberals, with pronoun laws, hate speech regulations, equal opportunity laws, forced cake baking, many other things. The 2nd is also being attacked from a variety of ways by liberals, which as said before, is well intentioned, but ultimately destructive. Thank goodness the 3rd isn'…
I'm a big fan of the amendments as well. I think we're all better served when we focus on specific issues that we can discuss together rather than splitting us up into two camps. As long as we look at everything through a partisan lens, we're going to continue to increase the friction preventing us from finding common ground and understanding.
Reading the Soviet Bill of Rights is pretty instructive because it'll show you how much such a thing is worth on its own. Here is just a subset of the rights guaranteed by the USSR Constitution: speech; press; religion (both to profess and refuse to profess); assembly (including a specific right to demonstrate); participation in lawmaking; inviolability of the person (from warrantless arrest) and of the home (from un…
(Modern day America has an entire manual to strip citizenship from people, don’t believe you’re like a native just because you got a piece of paper and a flag, the beast might turn against you)
Look, here is the thing that people have forgotten, or were never taught (due to a failing civics education system):
People have natural rights, independent of any government, and governments are formed among the people in order to protect those rights. The government does not grant rights! It can not take them without due process!
This is the fundamental principle of what I consider real American exceptionalism, and why American government at least in principle is the most free system of government in existence. (despite it's failings to live up those principles often) It's why Christopher Hitchens became an American and called it "the last revolution that stands a chance".
This was the original debate about the Bill of Rights in the first place. That by listing a few important rights the government would then think anything not listed would be allowed for the government to violate. Hence the "right to wear a hat" argument. That's not how things work though, and that's not what our government was founded on.
I'll give you a good example. Locke calls the right to self defense the first natural right. I agree. The second amendment is about defense against a tyrannic government. You could take it away and I would still have a right to bear arms independent of the (theoretically) absent second amendment.
Both parties hate stating this sort of thing out loud though because what they both are is authoritarian. For the conservatives, it would undermine all kinds of their moves like the drug war (unconstitutional abuse of commerce clause, states rights), and the same can be said of the left. This is why I get tired of all the cries anytime someone sees through the bullshit and calls them both equally corrupt, which they are, and are immediately hit with logically fallacious half-retorts of "whataboutism" and other rebuttle du jours.
I swore an oath to the Constitution, and I stand on those principles even when they make me uncomfortable. I'll give you another example. I always thought FDR's New Deal was one of the best things ever, a brilliant move we should seek to emulate in the modern day. When I dug into it though, I have to admit I have seen enough evidence that many of the New Deal policies were unconstitutional that I have an entire reading list prepped just to dig into the matter. So you can see how for someone who really wants more wealth equality how difficult it is to potentially admit minimum wage just might be unconstiutional. At least I am meeting those hard questions head on though, instead of burying my head in the sand.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm a big fan of the amendments as well. I think we're all better served when we focus on specific issues that we can discuss together rather than splitting us up into two camps. As long as we look at everything through a partisan lens, we're going to continue to increase the friction preventing us from finding common ground and understanding.
The BoR transcends partisan politics.
Unfortunately, pretty much all of the BoR is regularly under attack. Those rights have to be constantly reaffirmed.
On their defense, people mean well, but 'the road to hell did paved with good intentions' as they say. 1st Amendment is being attacked by liberals, with pronoun laws, hate speech regulations, equal opportunity laws, forced cake baking, many other things. The 2nd is also being attacked from a variety of ways by liberals, which as said before, is well intentioned, but ultimately destructive. Thank goodness the 3rd isn'…
Reading the Soviet Bill of Rights is pretty instructive because it'll show you how much such a thing is worth on its own. Here is just a subset of the rights guaranteed by the USSR Constitution: speech; press; religion (both to profess and refuse to profess); assembly (including a specific right to demonstrate); participation in lawmaking; inviolability of the person (from warrantless arrest) and of the home (from un…
https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Constitution_of_the_People%27...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
On their defense, people mean well, but 'the road to hell did paved with good intentions' as they say. 1st Amendment is being attacked by liberals, with pronoun laws, hate speech regulations, equal opportunity laws, forced cake baking, many other things. The 2nd is also being attacked from a variety of ways by liberals, which as said before, is well intentioned, but ultimately destructive. Thank goodness the 3rd isn'…
> I like all of the amendments. I'm not an NRA member, but the idea of repealing the 2nd Amendment, or worse, interpreting it out of existence has bothered me in ways I couldn't quite put my finger on. I finally realized what it was. If we decide one of the rights is "archaic", "obsolete", "insane", or any of the epithets routinely leveled at it, we set a terrible precedent. How long will it be before the rest fall w…