Subject:
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Re: For Those That *Don't Get* the 2nd Amendement (was Re: Those stupid liberal)
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Tue, 24 Sep 2002 18:07:08 GMT
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Viewed:
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1677 times
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David:
I am trying hard to respect your words, but I get the funny idea that this
is just one long troll for you.
Either that or you have some kind of blinders on over this particular
subject. Those quotes were just the tip of the iceberg -- there are dozens
of such statements, Federalist and Anti-Federalist, the explain precisely
what rights were assumed to exist and which were worthy of being protected
in the Bill of Rights. You want to argue against them -- fine, you go look
them up. I am very satisfied that I know what you will find and what those
quotes mean. I know exactly what the framers of the U.S. Constitution meant
about a good many things because I have made a point of reading their words
for myself -- and this at a time before the advent of the internet made such
research SO much easier.
I was reading "Am Jur" and "Words and Phrases" in the Los Angeles law
library paying for Saturday parking on the streets while I read. I own
personal reading copies of the Federalist Papers, the Anti-Federalist
papers. I have read extensively the texts of Locke, Rousseau, Bastiat (a
bit later), Jefferson, Madison, Franklin, and many others -- I think I have
read far more than I even recall easily. I read a lot! And I did this kind
of thing for many years. To understand the reasons for things you have to
read why the political theoreticians and the framers believed a thing to be
important -- you have to get at their rationales for things.
I am not going to waste any more time cross-referencing cites so you can
ignore their plain language. I am not going to do your homework for you. I
think it's pretty clear that you are arguing about what you don't know --
and you don't know because you haven't read it. Nothing forbids you from
reading it, so do so if you like. When you argue from ignorance, and
everyone else can see that, it weakens your argument and makes it tedious
for everyone else because you arguing from a subset of knowledge and not the
whole picture. You need more than a dictionary here, although that is a
good start. I tried to provide a starter's set of quotes, ones that would
lead you on your merry way -- if you choose not to make the journey, then
fine. But don't then come back at me and argue things as if you had made
the journey.
That's like having an opinion of a movie you haven't seen and insisting that
you something of depth to contribute to a discussion of the film. It
doesn't really work that way.
The point is: I don't question the nature of my assumed rights. If you do
question the kinds of rights that U.S. freemen enjoy, then the burden is on
you to establish why these rights are somehow misguided or wrong. And I am
not seeing that -- I am not even sure you have the requisite knowledge to
form a meaningful opinion on the subject.
I do not take likely the ideas upon which my life may depend. This isn't
some amusing argument in the boy's locker-room where seriousness may be
disregarded in favor of playing the devil's advocate for no reason. I can't
disregard the right and duty to bear arms just because some people are
getting uncomfortable with the idea of how the world really is.
Just as an aside: My SO and I were eating some beef and I began to talk
about good parts of the animal to eat and how it is butchered for the best
culinary benefit (actually, to be even more specific we were discussing the
particulars of an Argentine-style "parrillada"). Well, she began to get a
little green and asked me to stop talking about where the food we were
eating comes from because it was making her ill. Okay, fine. But what
insane hypocrisy, right? She'll eat the thing, but let's not talk about
what it is? I mean, the meat doesn't leap into styrofoam plates of its own
-- someone has to kill and butcher it first! To kill a thing, a plant or an
animal, for one's consumption and survival is an ethical act. To waste or
be ungrateful would be unethical, or at least bad manners. But what's my point?
Well, it's fine to talk about the expendability of rights in the abstract
once you have them secured. But someone has to have an eye to making sure
they stay secured by recalling how those rights were secured in the first
place. Yeah, some people go a little green about guns. It IS distasteful --
guns are nonetheless necessary because of that fact.
-- Hop-Frog
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