"Freedom" thread or something

manofmystery wrote: I'm sick of Glenn Beck calling himself a libertarian.  Beck's as neocon as they come on foreign policy.

  not as strange as Bill Maher who somehow claimed to be one...hey beck may believe it. Many do. Yeah im totally limited government....for what they want.

An argument about gun control I hadn't thought to make (which is odd, considering it hits at the core of most of my political arguments):

Oh, it's only "those guns", how specific.  I'll look for that language in the constitution.  I don't believe the world would be any less safe with the government monopoly over nuclear arms broken (it probably has considering how many went missing after the soviet union broke up).  I find it silly to argue that government is itself a responsible keeper of nuclear weapons, or any weapon, or that a nuclear weapon is practical for the average person to own.  Thing that seperates the government's ownership of weapons and the people's is that government never seems to have to answer for using them.  We know that the president uses drones to slaughter children yet instead of there being a push to take his weapons away he gets to lead the push to take everyone elses away. "No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms. The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government" - Thomas Jefferson

Are you sure you don't need 'free speech'? 

Epignosis wrote: You don't need free speech either, but you've got it.

AHA!  But even that is regulated...your argument is invalid.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/geoffrey-r-stone/understanding-the-second_b_2436549.html

Dean wrote: I have to say that the lengths you guys will go to is quite impressive. You must really love your guns a lot.

Yup - these days, England is sounding pretty sweet....

dtguitarfan wrote: Epignosis wrote: You don't need free speech either, but you've got it. AHA!  But even that is regulated...your argument is invalid. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/geoffrey-r-stone/understanding-the-second_b_2436549.html

Let's see:

One cannot be slanderous.  That isn't a restriction on free speech as much as it is its wrongful employment.  Slander can ruin someone.

Likewise, murder with a handgun is illegal.  That isn't a restriction on the right to bear arms any more than disallowing slander is a restriction against free speech.

article wrote: But it is more complicated than that. At the outset, let's put aside the argument that the "well-regulated militia" clause signficantly narrows the scope of the Second Amendment. Although most judges and lawyers endorse that interpretation, the Supreme Court, in its controversial five-to-four decision in District of Columbia v. Heller, rejected that understanding of the text.

Here's George Mason on the matter, who coauthored the second amendment:

George Mason wrote: Who are the militia? They consist now of the whole people, except a few public officers

And for good measure:

Tench Coxe wrote: "Who are the militia? Are they not ourselves? Is it feared, then, that we shall turn our arms each man against his own bosom? Congress shall have no power to disarm the militia. Their swords, and every other terrible implement of the soldier, are the birth-right of an American ... The 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."

Edited by Epignosis - January 17 2013 at 17:46

dtguitarfan wrote: Regardless - the second amendment has never meant "the government can't keep you from getting whatever the hell damn fool thing you want."

The second amendment actually says the right to bear arms "shall not be infringed."

(And that's passive voice, which implies by anyone).

Infringe - "Act so as to limit or undermine (something)."

I see no reason to infringe your right to muzzle-loading flintlocks and maybe, just maybe, a small sword if you promise not to cut yourself with it. Gunpowder and lead balls are another matter and are not covered by the 2nd Ammendment.

The T wrote: I can't agree with this one. Sure some in the IRS (as in all government institutions) will be crooks, sure the institution itself deserves scorn, sure many taxes are evil, but the person working in the window or in the booth in the IRS is just as innocent or morally defensible as the person working for a bank or other private institutions. Bankers are seldom examples of moral integrity, personal bankers try will all their might to make a poor couple get a loan they don't need that will ruin them forever. Yet the answer we could give (I'm just using bankers as an example, you haven't mentioned them) is that they are doing their job and sustaining themselves or their families. Aren't the people working for the IRS doing the same?  They are people doing their job.

There's some trade-off morally between feeding your family and doing your job. A soldier in an immoral war cannot justify that trade off at all. Other jobs can. It's not sufficient to say 'just doing their job.'