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Yeah, I guess Liberty isn't much of a motivator.Originally Posted by ablarc
You've totally ruined Father's Day.
Yeah, I guess Liberty isn't much of a motivator.
Wasn't for the folks in Germany in 1933. Didn't seem to mean much hereabouts in 2004.
This does not answer the question of why carrying a handgun is an intrisic right.
In fact, the statement is ironic, in that it is usually the gun-lobby that trots out the Constitution to "prove" the inalienable right to carry a handgun.
So if the Constitution is only recognizing this intrinsic right, it must originate from some other source. I can only conclude that it is intrinsic to the nature of a human being; and if so, humans in countries with reasonable gun-control laws are actually living in repressive states.
I think that in order to truly appreciate liberty, you have to either have:
- been born without it (or not enough of it), or
- had it taken away from you at some time, or
- had an experience(s) that gave you the feeling that your liberty will never be guaranteed.
In other words, you need a "before/after" basis for comparison.
I'm probably going to get wacked for my opinion, and my defense is, "you had to be there."
^ The irony is that the government we most need to worry about taking our liberty will be one the gun lobby worked to get elected. It'll be a majority government, won't it, and we'll be subject to the tyranny of the majority, which will wholeheartedly support its assault on freedom. Isn't that what happened in the Thirties in Germany? Now that was a popular government.
Didn't we get a little taste of that right here the last six years?
Free access to guns and eroded liberty. It's OK, it was just a little taste, but I can't imagine why anybody thinks having people own guns will preserve liberty when it's the gun aficionados' preferred governments we most need to worry about.
^
That's right.
And gun ownership not so much an expression of liberty, but of American individuality, the pioneer spirit, now largely a myth.
Rapunzel: I don't agree.
I went off topic before.
I was talking about liberties in general...
I, too, don't think that handgun ownership is an expression of liberty.
That embarrassing Second Amendment must be repealed.
So was I.I was talking about liberties in general...
You had to be there.
Explanation?
Zippy, you disagreed with my opinion on the conditions one has to have been in (or be in) in order to truly appreciate liberty. But you didn't specify how you disagree. Maybe it was because it was late at night and you were too tired; maybe you never feel like discussing it...
"I disagree" without qualification gets a razz. Nothing personal.
"American individuality"? - An interesting concept in a country consumed by "brands" and "designer labels". Thats no disrespect to the US as the UK is going down the same road.
Surely with there being in excess of 200 million guns in circulation in the US, "American individuality", if that is the term we use, is best expressed by NOT having a gun?
Again, as a non-American I always associate guns in America with the right-wing anti-government militia's, (what are they about?), the rabid racists of the KKK etc, the hunting crowd, and the powerful gun lobby.
What are guns for if not to kill? The only decision is what to kill, animals or humans? There ain't much else!
Give peace a chance as John Lennon once said.
^
I did say that it is now largely a myth.
I disagreed with the conclusion...
...that you need this experience. Sometimes it works, but often that experience produces an irrational response that actually blinds the population to the erosion of freedom.
You had this situation in Germany in 1933 - a humiliating defeat in WWI, postwar economic chaos, a sense that they did not control their own destiny. Burn the Reichstag, blame the Communists, and you have the opportunity for an emergency decree:There are parallels to 09/11. Freedom was lost: the freedom from fear, freedom to get on an airplane, freedom to take a photo anywhere without being questioned.Restrictions on personal liberty, on the right of free expression of opinion, including freedom of the press; on the rights of assembly and association; and violations of the privacy of postal, telegraphic and telephonic communications and warrants for house searches, orders for confiscations as well as restrictions on property, are also permissible beyond the legal limits otherwise prescribed.
As a result, we allowed our own citizens to be imprisoned without the Constitutional right of due process.
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