One of this guests made the point that this is the inevitable result of our society's widespread abandonment of the concept of absolute truth, absolute right and wrong, and corresponding all consuming self absorption and self indulgence... much the same point as I made after the Kirkwood MO massacre. (He even identified "postmoderism" and "relativism" as I had done last week..)
click to read my first PoMo Rant
Now... Right Mike makes some cogent comments in response to my previous post, but I'd like to address one in particular.
Oh, and another reason I don't want my guns taken away is that, as soon as there gone whats to stop the government from taking more rights away from me, you take away the second amendment because its outdated, you take away the bill of rights because all the amendments are equally old. What's to stop freedom of press next. Free speech goes, you can't stop the government you can't really revolt with sticks and baseball bats can you.
Now... to give some historical context on this (yes, I know... there I go again... thinking that our past has some relevance to our present... *grin*)
#1: In the days when the 2nd Amendment was added to the constitution, the situation both domestic and foreign was most unstable. We could not count on the government to fulfill its first duty to all citizens: To protect them from enemies within and without.
#2: Civilians often had better firearms than the government did, so the idea that gun ownership was a protection against government abuse was plausible indeed. Civvy's often used the Kentucky Long File while the government had muskets.
Today, that's not the case. There is no gun legal for civilian possession which can match the rate of fire, penetrative ability, and over all lethality of what the feds and SWAT teams have. Our personal pistols and hunting files won't even dent the body armor these guys have.
So the idea that personal firearms are a bulwark against government tyranny is utterly non sequitur - it doesn't follow!
#3:Clearly our enemies over seas have learned this lesson, even if our NRA purists here haven't. They aren't generally killing our brave men and women in uniform with guns... they're taking them out with unconventional explosives.
I don't know what the answer is yet... and I may never have one... but I do know that it is essential to constantly reexamine ones assumptions and beliefs, even & especially the most deeply held ones which have risen to the level being on a par with religion.
Remember- the definition of stupidity is doing the same thing and expecting different results. ... So... who's being stupid... and how to we wise'm up?!
2 comments:
The whole gun issue is very involved and complicated. You ask some excellent questions. In my opinion, this is one of those issues that is soooooo complicated because it is so woven into so many other complicated issues . . . crime and the judicial system, the deterioration of personal responsibility in a society that supposedly values personal choice and freedom, the decay of basic, common values (not only within society at large, but also within the corporate, military and governmental power structures).
to answer the stupidity question
Well you make them get up against a wall, bend over pull there pants down and shoot em in the ass.(sarcasm)
although it would be interesting to see results any ways heres some quotes from our founding fathers.
Thomas Jefferson said, “No free man shall be debarred the use of arms.” Patrick Henry said, “The great object is, that every man be armed.” Richard Henry Lee wrote, “To preserve liberty it is essential that the whole body of people always possess arms.” Thomas Paine noted, “[A]rms . . . discourage and keep the invader and the plunderer in awe, and preserve order in the world as well as property.”
Prominent Federalist Tench Coxe asked, “Who are the militia? Are they not ourselves?. . . Congress have no power to disarm the militia. Their swords, and every other terrible implement of the soldier, are the birth-right of an American. . . . [T]he unlimited power of the sword is not in the hands of either the federal or state governments but, where I trust in God it will ever remain, in the hands of the people.”
In introducing the Bill of Rights in the House of Representatives, James Madison noted that the amendments “relate first to private rights.” Sen. William Grayson observed that they “altogether respected personal liberty.” Tench Coxe wrote, “[T]he people are confirmed by the next article [of amendment] in their right to keep and bear their private arms.”
and the only issue i have with Reagan is he was anti-gun. But of course that could be cause he was shot at.
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