Well, I believe technically the first five verses are known as, “the part everyone knows up to”, and the latter seven are “the ones where we mumble incoherently”.
[Eddie Izzard] 12 monkeys mating, 11 donkeys dancing, 10 pygmies farming… [/EI]
If only the bumper sticker had said "“THE SECOND AMENDMENT MAKES THE OTHERS IN THE BILL OF RIGHTS POSSIBLE”
Or "“THE SECOND AMENDMENT MAKES THE OTHER AMENDMENTS IN THE BILL OF RIGHTS POSSIBLE”
Or if it had said "“THE SECOND AMENDMENT MAKES THE OTHER AMENDMENTS POSSIBLE”
However, it said: "“THE SECOND AMENDMENT MAKES THE OTHER NINE AMENDMENTS POSSIBLE”
“the other nine”. “the other nine”. “the other nine amendments”.
This says to me that they believe that there are a total of 10 amendments.
A total of ten amendments in what, though?
The six or seven right-wing gun nuts that I know are as familiar with the US Constitution as pretty much anybody on this board. I understand that they are wrong in their politics, but that doesn’t mean that they are stupid, or ignorant of inferior to you.
The bumper sticker tells me that they believe there are 10 amendments IN TOTAL.
ONLY 10.
No more than 10.
If they meant otherwise, they should have written the bumper sticker correctly. I’m sure there are many, many gun enthusiasts who know much more about the constitution, amendments and the Bill of Rights than I will ever know. However that is completely and totally irrelevant.
What is relevant is that in this particular case, the bumper sticker is moronic.
Where is the word ‘only’ in this?
“THE SECOND AMENDMENT MAKES THE OTHER NINE AMENDMENTS POSSIBLE”
Essentially, what we have here is that YOU are interpreting this to mean ‘only’ for reasons that are a mystery to me. I realize that you aren’t acknowledging that this encompasses the Bill of Rights, even though it’s a point that a lot of folks who would put such a bumper sticker on their car focus a lot on.
Why should they have written it ‘correctly’? So that you would be able to follow along? You aren’t it’s intended audience. It’s intended audience probably has no issue following along. I figured it out before I even read more than the OP, and I’m not it’s intended audience either. A friend of mine who I queried on this was able to figure it out in about 5 seconds…and he IS the intended audience.
Well, I’d say that the bumper sticker is childish and unsophisticated, and also wrong…just not in the way you or the OP or the majority of posters in this thread seem to be willing or able to understand. You WANT to demonize the fools who wrote this bumper sticker, in every way possible. Instead of focusing on the point that it’s factually incorrect and a silly thing to say you want to focus on the fact that you didn’t understand the underlying point they were trying to make…to point and laugh at the toothless hillbilly gun nutter types who don’t know how many Amendments there be, harhar!
Do you see the irony inherent in this thread? I sure do.
-XT
Yes, except for the fact that a bumper sticker faces certain editorial constraints that free prose does not. Specifically, space is at a premium: the size of the sticker is fixed, and must be of such a font size and style as to be readable to other drivers.
It’s very plausible to me that the sentiment was meant only to extend to the Bill of Rights, because they collectively carve out rights for the people. Other amendments do this as well, of course, but they are interspersed with amendments that do not. The Sixteenth Amendment, for example, conflicts strongly with the sentiment here, as does the Eighteenth. The Eleventh Amendment is utterly indifferent to the cause.
Given this and the Bill of Rights’ history, I think it evident that the target was the Bill of Rights. This excludes “THE SECOND AMENDMENT MAKES THE OTHER AMENDMENTS POSSIBLE.”
Now, there’s no doubt that “THE SECOND AMENDMENT MAKES THE OTHERS IN THE BILL OF RIGHTS POSSIBLE” and “THE SECOND AMENDMENT MAKES THE OTHER AMENDMENTS IN THE BILL OF RIGHTS POSSIBLE” are both more accurate. But they’re also longer. Using this much text means sacrificing text size and readability.
Who was that foot ballplayer who said; “there are 16 teams, every week 9 are going to win and 9 are going to lose.” Same thing. Math is hard.
“HAWAII MAKES THE OTHER 32 STATES POSSIBLE”
“THE WITCH KING OF ANGMAR MAKES THE OTHER SEVEN NAZGUL POSSIBLE”
“the uncapitalized bumper sticker makes the capitalized one possible”
“Virginia made the other 13 states possible”
‘Harhar…he don’t know how many states there be! What a maroon…’
-XT
“THE SECOND AMENDMENT MAKES THE OTHER NINE AMENDMENTS POSSIBLE”
Bumper stickers, by their nature (holy fuck, I can’t believe we are squeezing this turd this hard), have to be short, to the point, and clear. If you read the above statement, how can you NOT read it to imply that the maker of said sticker is saying that there are 10 amendments??
Empty your head of what you know about the real number of amendments, and read the words. Clearly, whoever wrote it thinks there are 10 amendments.
If you try to expand this to “he really MEANT to refer to the BOR” then you are inferring, which is much like assuming, with likely similar results.
Why come up with a slogan that is *explicitly *inaccurate? I just can’t think the writer went through the thinking you are conjecturing, and decided to go with brevity over accuracy. Not only did they give up accuracy in a vague way, they went to undeniable inaccuracy. They stated ‘NEGATIVE OF SOMETHING FACTUAL!’
Either the bumper sticker writer was a troll or an idiot. And I count being so unaware that when you make a statement like the bumper sticker did, as inviting scrutiny for ridicule, and being a deserving target of ridicule, as idiotic.
the second amendment makes the other nine amendments possible *(sic, * copied from the OP)
the second amendment makes your other rights possible
the second amendment made nine more possible
Both shorter, neither are inaccurate (at least, the statements are *debatably *accurate).
The other TWELVE? Or are you in a 14-colony timeline?
And yes, it does read stupidly anyway.
And yet it’s the first thing that popped into my head. Which is why I jumped into this rat fuck…because it seemed clear (and funny to me) that the OP wasn’t getting it.
Because the statement happens to correspond rather remarkably to the fact that there ARE 10 Amendments in the Bill of Rights. To paraphrase from The Fifth Element: Not 7 or 8 or 9 or 11…10. Why? Dumb luck? Perhaps. Perhaps I’m reading more into this than there is. Or, perhaps bumper stickers like this assume that the reader has at least some limited amount of knowledge and understanding and isn’t coming from a completely devoid vacuum where what is written has to be read literally.
If you were to read this from my earlier post:
“Virginia made the other 13 states possible”
You COULD infer that the writer only thinks there are 13 states. However, the 13 (and the fact that they reference Virginia) is significant. It assumes the reader has some sort of knowledge outside of reading the bumper sticker, and can infer that they are talking about the 13 original colonies. Sure…I made it up (though it would be funny if there were such a bumper sticker), but the point is that the intended audience of such a message might just understand the reference and be able to infer the intent…that the reader might have some prior knowledge outside of simply reading a bumper sticker.
Out of curiosity, why do the folks who think that the writer of this bumper sticker picked 10? Just because?
-XT
:smack: Oh gods…THAT is funny! You are quite right. 
-XT
I don’t think so . . . Let’s see, there’s Caprica, Gemenon, Leonis . . .
The tense of the statement is important:
= reasonable
= stupid sounding
= moronic
“My other car is a horseless carriage”
Virginia counts twice since 1863.
There’s not a doubt in my mind that the sticker was referring to the Bill of Rights. But calling them “THE other nine amendments” suggests a belief that there are no other amendments.
And I don’t buy the ‘artistic license’ argument. “The second amendment makes all the other amendments possible.” Simple, and even shorter than the original. Nope, those guys were just dumbasses.
I’d like a bumper sticker that reads “THIS IS A SLOGAN NOT A SYLLOGISM YOU PEDANTIC TWUNT”. Seriously, I’m from another fucking continent and it was obvious it was about the bill of rights.