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Post by atticusfinch on Mar 26, 2015 19:29:19 GMT -5
When the original meaning is supported by a bountiful abundance of documents produced by the originators of the text, to force additional meanings upon the text is less than an honest evaluation. To quote ol' Groucho.... sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. This addition of new choices is little more than a different version of 'new speak' as it dilutes the original intent in order to make room for a new meaning that decays the right. No one is denying a gun owners personal responsibility for his/her actions with respect to safety, but to take that further to the point of removing the 'personal' decision making and replacing it with a government's decision making is to remove the right as it becomes a right in name only when the government can mold and modify the 'right' as it sees fit. In other words, at that point it's not a right, it's just a privilege. AF As I said finding materials supporting the one view ignores the extensive history and rulings also supporting the opposite. These things are in tension not an absolute. Your method gives credibility to both valid and invalid understandings which as I posted earlier does little more than dilute and decay the right via support for a false equality of meanings. When no clear meaning is known we must go through the evaluation of many alternative meanings but that is not the case with this... we do know the original intent of the amendment... some just don't want to do the work to modify the amendment through the appropriate process and so choose to dilute the intent in order to devalue it while at the same time increase the value of an alternative that they support. AF
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Post by Icebear on Mar 26, 2015 19:39:32 GMT -5
No, you clearly don't. You are simply clinging to your own ideas without looking beyond. Read the Fordham article and Waldman's book. Read Blackstone's Commentaries. Bellesiles research was crap but it is not the definitive work showing the problems of excessively individualist focused understanding of the Second. It is simply that smoke screen the right loves to use to stop people from looking further.
If one wants to talk about changes in meaning then a very promising pursuit is to study the evolving positions of the NRA today which are an embarrassment to the NRA leadership of the 30s, 40s, 50s, and 60s and earlier when it was responsive to membership and before it was bought and sold by Wayne LaPierre and the gun manufacturing industry. Even today the majority of the general membership frequently polls in direct opposition to the actions of today's leadership. The transformation of the NRA occurred in 1977 at the same time that the Moral Majority and Baptists suddenly decided to go against their historical position that abortion was an act of conscience. Both were only political acts, cold and calculated part of Lee Atkinson's southern strategy for Nixon. Read Randall Balmer and Francis Schaeffer for history confirming this.
A little NRA history, "In the early 1900s, the NRA began to flex its political muscle - in favor of gun control. NRA leaders helped draft the Uniform Firearms Act, a piece of model legislation enacted by dozens of states to restrict the carrying of firearms in public. The law required anyone who wanted to carry a concealed weapon to first obtain a permit and imposed a waiting period on the sale of handguns."
"The NRA also endorsed the first major federal gun-control law, the National Firearms Act of 1934. At congressional hearings, Frederick was asked if the Second Amendment was a bar to the law. His answer was, from today's vantage point, remarkable: "I have not given it any study from that point of view."
"Frederick's opinion was that protection for gun rights, he wrote, was "not to be found in the Constitution." For most of its history, the NRA completely ignored the Second Amendment. If you go through old issues of the NRA's signature publication, American Rifleman, from the 1940s and 1950s, you can read issue after issue without finding a single mention of the Second Amendment. The organization was focused on marksmanship and hunting, not shooting down gun control."
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Post by atticusfinch on Mar 26, 2015 20:04:44 GMT -5
No, you clearly don't. You are simply clinging to your own ideas without looking beyond. Read the Fordham article and Waldman's book. Read Blackstone's Commentaries. Bellesiles research was crap but it is not the definitive work showing the problems of excessively individualist focused understanding of the Second. It is simply that smoke screen the right loves to use to stop people from looking further. If one wants to talk about changes in meaning then a very promising pursuit is to study the evolving positions of the NRA today which are an embarrassment to the NRA leadership of the 40s, 50s, and 60s when it was responsive to membership and before it was bought and sold by Wayne LaPierre and the gun manufacturing industry. Let me put it this way… your handle on this forum and another site forum is Icebear…. Your insistence upon giving equivalence to ‘other’, 'newer' opinions about what your handle is does nothing positive. It’s as if some of us insist that your handle is Gumby or Snowball or Stringbean. Does our insistence change your name from Icebear? Should we give each of the alternatives a serious and equal evaluation? Or should we just accept the already know truth that shows your handle to be Icebear? As I posted previously, Waldman is an advocate just as Lott is an advocate... I prefer to leave the advocates out of my decision making as they are so often corrupted by their passions. I've read more than is reasonable over the years of my lifetime on this subject and the one truth that keeps shining through is that as much as those who showcase their creativity in giving birth to new interpretations, the original intent is still there if one is willing to drop their political blinders and see it. Even your language choices of "excessively individualist focused understanding" is an avoidance of what is already in front of you. At it's heart is not a left or right issue... it is an individuals rights issue as defined in the founding documents of our country. This was well debated at the time... We know the intent. We also know that an individual focus was an essential part of the experiment that the founders undertook. It is at the heart of the difference they were defining between us and the rest of the known world at the time. The NRA leadership of the 40's and 50's never envisioned an America willing to attack it's own rights. Had they been confronted with the assault on their rights, it is highly likely that they would have created a response to fend off the attacks too. You must know that your position is weak when you resort to demeaning your opposition as an 'embarrassment.' Today we live with far too much of this approach of attacking the character of the person when ones argument runs out of steam. Ice... the additions you've made have exposed your weakness for hyper political rants. You lose credibility when you post these bits of passion fueled politica... referencing extremists from any stripe is of no help in understanding an issue. Marinating oneself in the works of those who have lost balance and reason is never a good thing. AF
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Post by Icebear on Mar 26, 2015 20:15:21 GMT -5
No, you clearly don't. You are simply clinging to your own ideas without looking beyond. Read the Fordham article and Waldman's book. Read Blackstone's Commentaries. Bellesiles research was crap but it is not the definitive work showing the problems of excessively individualist focused understanding of the Second. It is simply that smoke screen the right loves to use to stop people from looking further. If one wants to talk about changes in meaning then a very promising pursuit is to study the evolving positions of the NRA today which are an embarrassment to the NRA leadership of the 40s, 50s, and 60s when it was responsive to membership and before it was bought and sold by Wayne LaPierre and the gun manufacturing industry. Let me put it this way… your handle on this forum and another site forum is Icebear…. Your insistence upon giving equivalence to ‘other’, 'newer' opinions about what your handle is does nothing positive. It’s as if some of us insist that your handle is Gumby or Snowball or Stringbean. Does our insistence change your name from Icebear? Should we give each of the alternatives a serious and equal evaluation? Or should we just accept the already know truth that shows your handle to be Icebear? As I posted previously, Waldman is an advocate just as Lott is an advocate... I prefer to leave the advocates out of my decision making as they are so often corrupted by their passions. I've read more than is reasonable over the years of my lifetime on this subject and the one truth that keeps shining through is that as much as those who showcase their creativity in giving birth to new interpretations, the original intent is still there if one is willing to drop their political blinders and see it. Even your language choices of "excessively individualist focused understanding" is an avoidance of what is already in front of you. At it's heart is not a left or right issue... it is an individuals rights issue as defined in the founding documents of our country. This was well debated at the time... We know the intent. We also know that an individual focus was an essential part of the experiment that the founders undertook. It is at the heart of the difference they were defining between us and the rest of the known world at the time. The NRA leadership of the 40's and 50's never envisioned an America willing to attack it's own rights. Had they been confronted with the assault on their rights, it is highly likely that they would have created a response to fend off the attacks too. You must know that your position is weak when you resort to demeaning your opposition as an 'embarrassment.' Today we live with far too much of this approach of attacking the character of the person when ones argument runs out of steam. Ice... the additions you've made have exposed your weakness for hyper political rants. You lose credibility when you post these bits of passion fueled politica. AF Everything you you assert above is no more proven by your assertions than anything you attribute to mine. Waldman is as much a historian as an advocate. His material challenges both the left with numerous flaws in the historical arguments. Ken Frederick, NRA president , would be embarrassed by by the idea of open carry law. His spent his time at the head of the NRA campaigning against it. What is funny is that every word you have written is tinged with politics.
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Post by atticusfinch on Mar 26, 2015 20:17:48 GMT -5
Let me put it this way… your handle on this forum and another site forum is Icebear…. Your insistence upon giving equivalence to ‘other’, 'newer' opinions about what your handle is does nothing positive. It’s as if some of us insist that your handle is Gumby or Snowball or Stringbean. Does our insistence change your name from Icebear? Should we give each of the alternatives a serious and equal evaluation? Or should we just accept the already know truth that shows your handle to be Icebear? As I posted previously, Waldman is an advocate just as Lott is an advocate... I prefer to leave the advocates out of my decision making as they are so often corrupted by their passions. I've read more than is reasonable over the years of my lifetime on this subject and the one truth that keeps shining through is that as much as those who showcase their creativity in giving birth to new interpretations, the original intent is still there if one is willing to drop their political blinders and see it. Even your language choices of "excessively individualist focused understanding" is an avoidance of what is already in front of you. At it's heart is not a left or right issue... it is an individuals rights issue as defined in the founding documents of our country. This was well debated at the time... We know the intent. We also know that an individual focus was an essential part of the experiment that the founders undertook. It is at the heart of the difference they were defining between us and the rest of the known world at the time. The NRA leadership of the 40's and 50's never envisioned an America willing to attack it's own rights. Had they been confronted with the assault on their rights, it is highly likely that they would have created a response to fend off the attacks too. You must know that your position is weak when you resort to demeaning your opposition as an 'embarrassment.' Today we live with far too much of this approach of attacking the character of the person when ones argument runs out of steam. Ice... the additions you've made have exposed your weakness for hyper political rants. You lose credibility when you post these bits of passion fueled politica. AF Everything you you assert above is no more proven by your assertions than anything you attribute to mine. Waldman is as much a historian as an advocate. His material challenges both the left with numerous flaws in the historical arguments. I do hope that you just gotten yourself caught up in argument and don't actually believe that Waldman is credible, let alone a true historian. AF
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Post by Icebear on Mar 26, 2015 20:30:30 GMT -5
Yes, I do. He has a History BA from Columbia and a law degree both are the roots of many historians. He has, also, written several books based in historical research. He is certainly qualified to do work on the history of the Second Amendment and related law.
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Post by atticusfinch on Mar 26, 2015 20:34:31 GMT -5
Yes, I do. He has a History BA from Columbia and a law degree both are the roots of many historians. He has, also, written several books based in historical research. Oh well... we each have our right to define our own standards for titles and identifications. Like I posted before, I prefer to leave the opinions of the radicals on either side out of my equation. Af
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Post by Icebear on Mar 26, 2015 20:37:01 GMT -5
Yes, I do. He has a History BA from Columbia and a law degree both are the roots of many historians. He has, also, written several books based in historical research. Oh well... we each have our right to define our own standards for titles and identifications. Like I posted before, I prefer to leave the opinions of the radicals on either side out of my equation. Af Your posts have been nothing but politically radical. And have ignored huge portions of history which I simply pointed towards.
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Post by atticusfinch on Mar 26, 2015 20:38:13 GMT -5
Oh well... we each have our right to define our own standards for titles and identifications. Like I posted before, I prefer to leave the opinions of the radicals on either side out of my equation. Af Your posts have been nothing but politically radical. I suppose that you do see it that way from where you stand... come closer to the middle and it will look very different to you. AF
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Post by atticusfinch on Mar 26, 2015 20:48:19 GMT -5
Oh well... we each have our right to define our own standards for titles and identifications. Like I posted before, I prefer to leave the opinions of the radicals on either side out of my equation. Af Your posts have been nothing but politically radical. And have ignored huge portions of history which I simply pointed towards.I haven't ignored them... I dismissed them as the obfuscational clutter that they are. The bits you referred to are akin in value to the insistence that your handle on this forum is something other than Icebear. And let's remember that my opinion aligns very nicely with the authors explanations of the meaning of the amendment. So I suppose that I am politically radical if one considers the radical nature of individual rights trumping central government authority. That was radical in it's time... and sadly given the efforts of folks like the ninth circuit justices and folks like Waldman it is seen by folks like yourself as radical once again... That's a shame. AF
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Post by Icebear on Mar 26, 2015 21:00:18 GMT -5
That sure cuts down on work if you dismiss its validity before even looking at it.
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Post by atticusfinch on Mar 26, 2015 21:18:17 GMT -5
That sure cuts down on work if you dismiss its validity before even looking at it. I told you that Waldman, the 9th circuit opinion and much much more was already familiar to me. Once again, I dismissed these recognizing them for what they were...politically motivated clutter intended to decay the already knowable meaning. Am I also to give credence to the alternative opinions that your handle on this forum is not Icebear but instead Snowball or Gumby? My question for you would be why would you assume that's others would be unacquainted with these points of view? AF
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