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burnunitsupreme court just upheld the right to keep and bear arms. I went off in another forum and you can
Everyone thinks no one cares about the militia thing, well they should. I've been wondering the last few years if possibly the right to keep and bear arms has along with it, or finds a full expression in a corresponding duty to participate in the defense of our neighbors. What if everyone should have a gun, or at least know how to use them? Or at least know how to be safe around them?
People act sometimes like a gun is a magic wand: pick one up and it's likely to fire, just like that it'll go off and maim or kill anyone you see. They begin to take on such totemic significance. They aren't. They've been used to kill a lot of people, but they're not magic totems! They're dangerous tools whose purpose is unlike all other tools: only for killing or hurting. Yes, unless you're Homer Simpson, you can't use a gun to both open things and kill someone; or chop wood and maim somebody. They have one purpose, to kill. There is some duality in that they can be used to either kill food animals, or for murder/war. But they're not like an axe or a hammer or a simple machine. Yet they are not the Finger of God or anything!
I'm a city-dwelling liberal. But I feel I know the proper place of guns and what to do with them. I feel like there is a historic purpose for them as well, in the sense that revolution moves the wheel of history sometimes. It worked in the colonies, it could be made to work again. Don't be so sure of the complete annihilation of citizen armies and militias. How is the most fearsomely advanced army in the history of the world doing against militias in a crowded urban environment right now? Our soldiers are acquitting themselves bravely, but militias fight on. If fascist militarism attempted a full blown coup and martial action against our own people, many of us would likely fare just as well. It's not a given, written in stone, that small arms cannot stand up for The People. It's almost certainly a given if we are disarmed. I'm sorry. I can't and won't force you to see it that way, but time and again history proves me and people who share this opinion correct.
As for the bill of rights... what if we considered that all rights in the first ten amendments are necessary to preserve each other? That they represent a coherent whole? Not just that guns will protect my liberties, but that speech will protect my guns, guns will protect my body and home from illegal actions, a speedy and fair trial where I do not self-incriminate will protect me from cruel and unusual punishments, and so on. I would take a more radical "constitutional wholism" approach here to say that even seemingly disconnected rights -- freedom of/from religion has a connection with the right to a jury, and the right to bear arms has a connection to eminent domain. All the rights together have as much to do with being a truly free person as any one of them alone and that the measure of being a truly liberal and liberated soul is to exercise the many rights as often as you can.
Forget whether it's pandering to win elections. Forget if you "believe" in this decision (what does that mean to believe or not in an objective reality of a current event?). Why have progressives, people like me, been so outraged about this issue? It seems like we are the irrational ones, assigning to guns a power and significance beyond their measure; and the rights associated with guns a weirdly incoherent status, as uncomfortable outliers in the picture of freedom. You don't have to buy into anything distasteful to open the eyes in your own head and see the vitality of our constitutional protections includes, indeed depends on, tools which are able to kill.
I fear this casual attitude toward the second amendment is the mirror image of the casual disregard for habeas corpus demonstrated recently by the powers that be. It's not the sensible enlightened differentiator of us vs. them, it's our looking glass version of disinterest in a vigorous defense of all liberties together, for the better of all of us.
Everyone thinks no one cares about the militia thing, well they should. I've been wondering the last few years if possibly the right to keep and bear arms has along with it, or finds a full expression in a corresponding duty to participate in the defense of our neighbors. What if everyone should have a gun, or at least know how to use them? Or at least know how to be safe around them?
People act sometimes like a gun is a magic wand: pick one up and it's likely to fire, just like that it'll go off and maim or kill anyone you see. They begin to take on such totemic significance. They aren't. They've been used to kill a lot of people, but they're not magic totems! They're dangerous tools whose purpose is unlike all other tools: only for killing or hurting. Yes, unless you're Homer Simpson, you can't use a gun to both open things and kill someone; or chop wood and maim somebody. They have one purpose, to kill. There is some duality in that they can be used to either kill food animals, or for murder/war. But they're not like an axe or a hammer or a simple machine. Yet they are not the Finger of God or anything!
I'm a city-dwelling liberal. But I feel I know the proper place of guns and what to do with them. I feel like there is a historic purpose for them as well, in the sense that revolution moves the wheel of history sometimes. It worked in the colonies, it could be made to work again. Don't be so sure of the complete annihilation of citizen armies and militias. How is the most fearsomely advanced army in the history of the world doing against militias in a crowded urban environment right now? Our soldiers are acquitting themselves bravely, but militias fight on. If fascist militarism attempted a full blown coup and martial action against our own people, many of us would likely fare just as well. It's not a given, written in stone, that small arms cannot stand up for The People. It's almost certainly a given if we are disarmed. I'm sorry. I can't and won't force you to see it that way, but time and again history proves me and people who share this opinion correct.
As for the bill of rights... what if we considered that all rights in the first ten amendments are necessary to preserve each other? That they represent a coherent whole? Not just that guns will protect my liberties, but that speech will protect my guns, guns will protect my body and home from illegal actions, a speedy and fair trial where I do not self-incriminate will protect me from cruel and unusual punishments, and so on. I would take a more radical "constitutional wholism" approach here to say that even seemingly disconnected rights -- freedom of/from religion has a connection with the right to a jury, and the right to bear arms has a connection to eminent domain. All the rights together have as much to do with being a truly free person as any one of them alone and that the measure of being a truly liberal and liberated soul is to exercise the many rights as often as you can.
Forget whether it's pandering to win elections. Forget if you "believe" in this decision (what does that mean to believe or not in an objective reality of a current event?). Why have progressives, people like me, been so outraged about this issue? It seems like we are the irrational ones, assigning to guns a power and significance beyond their measure; and the rights associated with guns a weirdly incoherent status, as uncomfortable outliers in the picture of freedom. You don't have to buy into anything distasteful to open the eyes in your own head and see the vitality of our constitutional protections includes, indeed depends on, tools which are able to kill.
I fear this casual attitude toward the second amendment is the mirror image of the casual disregard for habeas corpus demonstrated recently by the powers that be. It's not the sensible enlightened differentiator of us vs. them, it's our looking glass version of disinterest in a vigorous defense of all liberties together, for the better of all of us.
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(no subject)
Date: 2008-06-26 06:14 pm (UTC)Guns are tools for hunting. But you don't need a semiautomatic weapon to hunt deer. Or a hand gun.
The reason the right to bear arms exists is so people can come together and defend themselves, against an corrupt government if need be. But I tell you, if someone starts collecting weapons and says nay against the government, the government comes out fo the woodwork and takes their guns. Just saying the intent of that amendment does not match the present day interpitation.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-06-26 07:29 pm (UTC)The intent might not match your present day interpretation :-D ...
(no subject)
Date: 2008-06-26 07:18 pm (UTC)gotcha, chief!
Date: 2008-06-26 07:24 pm (UTC)but srsly folks, it's not even being pro gun, in a way. to me that's sort of like being "pro-rake". I need a rake for leaves and I need a gun for ... other purposes. I mean, I don't feel a need for it, even, like I can't sleep without one. Likewise I could just let the leaves rot or mow over them and let them mulch in place. This analogy is breaking down.
Point is, I don't have to be pro-gun (I am) or anti-gun, in any larger or symbolic sense. But I do greatly feel a sense of duty to the whole picture.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-06-26 08:10 pm (UTC)When did liberals become such a bunch of pansy-ass right-restricters? This is why, although I have a STRONG preference for a smoke-free bar I would vote against smoke-free laws forever.
And I, like you, do not dismiss the need for an armed populace. What was it "A repressive American government would face a million armed citizens" or something very similar? The government should know that the people can and will resist in certain situations.
And, after the apocalypse, people will need to be armed!