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How We Learned to Love the Bill of Rights

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Re: How We Learned to Love the Bill of Rights

#71

Post by gnode »

danjayh wrote: post #41
Meekro wrote: post #6

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…

This is what scares me about the current attitude (nationally) towards gun control. The right to bear arms is a basic civil right, unambiguously encoded in the Bill of Rights alongside speech, assembly, religion, due process, etc. Throughout history, taking away weapons has always been an early step down the slippery slope to totalitarianism and stripping the populous of their other rights. Just because it's unlikely…

I have to wonder whether gun ownership is preventing totalitarianism government when the will of the people to resist or even recognise authoritarianism is lacking. As a European, facts such as the incarceration rate of the US being second only to the Seychelles strike me as oddly dystopian.

Re: How We Learned to Love the Bill of Rights

#72

Post by ataturk »

I stopped at "fetishization." The BOR is the last thing Americans have standing between us and technocratic tyranny and we're losing badly even then.

ETA: It makes me so sad to read that anyone would support the repeal of the 2nd Amendment. I think maybe you haven't researched the subject enough and are using emotional reasoning to guide your thinking versus taking a really hard look at history, not just American, but WORLD history and realize that governments can't be trusted and that they are merely the monopoly of force that eventually seeks to overwhelm all reasonable restrictions on them by their very nature. Government is our monster, but when it gets out of control that monster kills millions in a single bite.

1st Amendment -- the right to speak your peace without fear of reprisal 2nd Amendment -- the ability to enforce ^ even if you don't win, you still stuck it where the sun don't shine, proverbially speaking. 3rd, 4th, 5th, ... -- All the lessons learned from dealing with the British Crown and their minions in the colonies. I guess all of them are, actually, when you think through it. Those were bad times and I hope we don't visit them again although I'm sure we will since it is human nature to forget important lessons.

Re: How We Learned to Love the Bill of Rights

#73

Post by zaroth »

kelnos wrote: post #40
skookumchuck wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

I would absolutely be in favor of a repeal of the 2nd Amendment, and I would be very afraid to see the right to bear arms be legislated out of existence (without a repeal) because of the precedent that would set regarding not just the rest of the Bill of Rights, or the rest of the Amendments, but the entire Constitution itself. I'm not talking about the 2nd being inconvenient. I'm talking about it being a mistake. Ju…

Exactly how do you imagine an attempt to confiscate a few hundred million guns would play out in this country?

Advocating for repeal of the 2nd seems to me to be advocating for civil war and literal decimation of the country.

Re: How We Learned to Love the Bill of Rights

#74

Post by didgeoridoo »

kelnos wrote: post #48
skookumchuck wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's an interesting argument. I sure get distressed when otherwise intelligent and educated Americans sincerely tell me: "Sure I believe in free speech, but you can't let that guy say those things!" They'll throw it all away for some insignificant gain.

How prevalent is that, really? I have literally never heard anyone say that, ever. I've certainly heard people express anger or disgust at some things people have said, but I have not heard anyone ever suggest that it should be illegal to say those things.

It’s a pretty standard view among the left in the US that “hate speech is not protected speech”, and that anything they deem to be “hateful” should be illegal.

Re: How We Learned to Love the Bill of Rights

#75

Post by direfungasaur »

zaroth wrote: post #73
kelnos wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would absolutely be in favor of a repeal of the 2nd Amendment, and I would be very afraid to see the right to bear arms be legislated out of existence (without a repeal) because of the precedent that would set regarding not just the rest of the Bill of Rights, or the rest of the Amendments, but the entire Constitution itself. I'm not talking about the 2nd being inconvenient. I'm talking about it being a mistake. Ju…

Exactly how do you imagine an attempt to confiscate a few hundred million guns would play out in this country? Advocating for repeal of the 2nd seems to me to be advocating for civil war and literal decimation of the country.

Are you implying that gun-owners would suddenly wage war on the nation if they were told to hand over (some portion of) their guns in the next year or face civil penalties? Doesn't it seem far more likely that most law-abiding folks would hand over their weapons to avoid interruption to their lives, possibly retaining one or two illegally?

Most of the people I know would complain and protest any confiscation, but I doubt they would shoot a law officer to protect that privilege. They would simply lose too much in return for that exchange.

Re: How We Learned to Love the Bill of Rights

#76

Post by zaroth »

kelnos wrote: post #45
arca_vorago wrote: post #25

I ctrl+f'd "natural rights" and came up with nothing, which is how I knew from the start this wasn't a very good article on the subject. 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…

> People have natural rights, independent of any government, and governments are formed among the people in order to protect those rights. Not really. We've come up with that fiction because we believe -- and we're probably right -- that it gives us the best chance at living together peacefully and without interfering too much with each people's lives. But it really is a fiction. I personally believe in what you call…

“Natural rights” don’t come naturally. Something is a “natural right” not because laws of physics dictate they are inviolable but because they are essential to humanity and peaceful existence, and every human is born into them.

The “natural rights” to life, liberty, pursuit of happiness, assembly, association, religion, arms, etc. are the closest we’ve come as a race to “absolute moral truth”.

Re: How We Learned to Love the Bill of Rights

#77

Post by zaroth »

direfungasaur wrote: post #75
zaroth wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly how do you imagine an attempt to confiscate a few hundred million guns would play out in this country? Advocating for repeal of the 2nd seems to me to be advocating for civil war and literal decimation of the country.

Are you implying that gun-owners would suddenly wage war on the nation if they were told to hand over (some portion of) their guns in the next year or face civil penalties? Doesn't it seem far more likely that most law-abiding folks would hand over their weapons to avoid interruption to their lives, possibly retaining one or two illegally? Most of the people I know would complain and protest any confiscation, but I d…

Gun confiscation from law-abiding citizens at a Federal level? Yes, I believe that has a pretty significant chance of going sideways quite rapidly.

Target a vulnerable sub-population and you just might be able to pull it off (mentally impaired, under 21, etc.)

Re: How We Learned to Love the Bill of Rights

#78

Post by quantumleap22 »

gnode wrote: post #71
danjayh wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is what scares me about the current attitude (nationally) towards gun control. The right to bear arms is a basic civil right, unambiguously encoded in the Bill of Rights alongside speech, assembly, religion, due process, etc. Throughout history, taking away weapons has always been an early step down the slippery slope to totalitarianism and stripping the populous of their other rights. Just because it's unlikely…

I have to wonder whether gun ownership is preventing totalitarianism government when the will of the people to resist or even recognise authoritarianism is lacking. As a European, facts such as the incarceration rate of the US being second only to the Seychelles strike me as oddly dystopian.

The incarceration rates of Europeans in America are similar to those of Europeans in Europe.

Re: How We Learned to Love the Bill of Rights

#79

Post by freddie_mercury »

tlrobinson wrote: post #49
freddie_mercury wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If the BoR didn't have the same nearly religious status one of those attacks would have succeeded by now. I don't think this follows at all from the article. After all, one of the main points is that there WASN'T a cult until the 1940s...yet those rights were able to stand for 160 years without a religious status supporting them. Your argument that the Bill of Rights had a religious status for all 200+ years of its…

Perhaps the religious status evolved in response to increasing attacks on the BoR?

Sure, that's a possibility but is yet another variant that wasn't claimed and provided with no backing evidence.

Re: How We Learned to Love the Bill of Rights

#80

Post by randallsquared »

danjayh wrote: post #41
Meekro wrote: post #6

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…

This is what scares me about the current attitude (nationally) towards gun control. The right to bear arms is a basic civil right, unambiguously encoded in the Bill of Rights alongside speech, assembly, religion, due process, etc. Throughout history, taking away weapons has always been an early step down the slippery slope to totalitarianism and stripping the populous of their other rights. Just because it's unlikely…

> Throughout history, taking away weapons has always been an early step down the slippery slope to totalitarianism and stripping the populous of their other rights.

Only in retrospect: if you look at non-ephemeral totalitarian regimes, they don't typically allow dissenters to freely control effective weapons... but if you start from the other direction and examine states which do not allow their populace to freely control effective weapons, your examination pool is most of the states in the world, most of which are not (typically considered) totalitarian.

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