# Founding Fathers influencing today's politics **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [August 28, 2019, 6:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/founding-fathers-influencing-todays-politics/839345 "2019-08-28T06:48:21Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 16
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2019, 3:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/founding-fathers-influencing-todays-politics/839345/302 "2019-09-09T15:42:59Z")
> [@Abatis](#): > > First off, the right to arms is not granted, given, created or established by the 2nd Amendment. Repealing it would not allow the federal government to “infringe” on the right. The People possess the right because we never granted to government any power to impact the personal arms of the private citizen. Granting that new power would need to happen, repeal the 2nd to remove the redundant prohibition to exercise powers never granted and then grant the feds the new (hopefully specifically defined) power to restrict the citizen’s arms possession and use. > > This discussion is focused primarily on federal law and how that is either bound or unencumbered by the framers original intent. > > Original intent (and action) of the Bill of Rights was that it did not bind state action at all. The 14th Amendment (1868) changed that dynamic (or was supposed to). Fact is, the 2nd Amendment has not been much of an impediment to state laws at all, even after it was finally “incorporated” under the 14th in 2010 (in _McDonald v Chicago_ which invalidated Chicago’s handgun ban). > > The only binding action emanating from the federal Constitution for protecting the right to arms of _ **state citizens** _ flows from the Constitution’s promise to forever provide a Republican form of government. Because the armed citizens also serve as the reserve military force of the nation, as well as the states, the states can not disarm their citizens. (see _Presser v Illinois_) Maybe you’re right about the legal aspects, but I suspect this would just depend on which party happens to have a majority of SCOTUS justices at the moment (i.e. the Republicans own the SCOTUS now, and have for many years, but that probably won’t last forever). I’m less and less convinced that any of this is more than just a house of cards that we all happen to (mostly) agree to avoid tipping over. I don’t think it would take much to expose how truly flawed and vulnerable our system is (and much of that is happening as we speak). ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2019, 6:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/founding-fathers-influencing-todays-politics/839345/303 "2019-09-09T18:02:59Z")
> [@ElvisL1ves](#): > > Perhaps, but if so, such a ruling would have been because the 2nd applies only to militia use, and does NOT declare there to be an individual right outside that context. How can that be unclear? How do you know this? Previous decisions had mentioned it as a right to defense. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2019, 6:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/founding-fathers-influencing-todays-politics/839345/304 "2019-09-09T18:07:10Z")
No way to read it otherwise, is there? ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2019, 6:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/founding-fathers-influencing-todays-politics/839345/305 "2019-09-09T18:09:48Z")
> [@ElvisL1ves](#): > > No way to read it otherwise, is there? Of course there is, experienced justices ruled otherwise in Heller and previous decisions. Unless you think you know more law than a Supreme Court Justice? ---
**Author:** ![QuickSilver](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quicksilver/32/7832_2.png) [@QuickSilver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/QuickSilver)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2019, 6:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/founding-fathers-influencing-todays-politics/839345/306 "2019-09-09T18:28:00Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > Of course there is, experienced justices ruled otherwise in Heller and previous decisions. > > Unless you think you know more law than a Supreme Court Justice? …And by resounding unanimous decision, if I recall. :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![Hamlet](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hamlet/32/2818_2.png) [@Hamlet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hamlet)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2019, 6:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/founding-fathers-influencing-todays-politics/839345/307 "2019-09-09T18:48:52Z")
> [@Bone](#): > > Mostly because I’ve read Miller and Stevens conclusions regarding it are poor. Like I already said: “It sounds like you took issue with the fact that I agree with Stevens and you disagree with Stevens.” > [@Bone](#): > > I understand that Stevens is arguing that precedent was overturned. But as a matter of law, he’s wrong and it is incorrect to say that Heller overturned precedent. You know what word doesn’t show up at all in Stevens’ dissent. Overturned. He, and I, never once said Heller overturned precedent. There is a world of difference between overturning precedent and misreading and mistakenly distinguishing precedent. Which is what the majority opinion did. I get that you want to make it seem like Heller wasn’t a shift in the interpretation of the Second Amendment, but it is. ---
**Author:** ![Bone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bone/32/407_2.png) [@Bone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bone)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2019, 6:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/founding-fathers-influencing-todays-politics/839345/308 "2019-09-09T18:57:02Z")
> [@Hamlet](#): > > You know what word doesn’t show up at all in Stevens’ dissent. > > Overturned. > > He, and I, never once said Heller overturned precedent. There is a world of difference between overturning precedent and misreading and mistakenly distinguishing precedent. Which is what the majority opinion did. > > I get that you want to make it seem like Heller wasn’t a shift in the interpretation of the Second Amendment, but it is. “Overturned” was a poor word choice on my part. The operative phrase was “contrary to precedent” which is the line of discussion that I took issue with. In that sense, I’m not seeing much of a distinction, but I would continue to say that nothing in Heller was contrary to precedent as you asserted in post #252. Heller did carve new ground and made certain things more explicit of course. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2019, 6:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/founding-fathers-influencing-todays-politics/839345/309 "2019-09-09T18:58:45Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > Of course there is No\* intellectually-honest \*way. ---
**Author:** ![Hamlet](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hamlet/32/2818_2.png) [@Hamlet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hamlet)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2019, 7:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/founding-fathers-influencing-todays-politics/839345/310 "2019-09-09T19:12:52Z")
> [@Bone](#): > > “Overturned” was a poor word choice on my part. The operative phrase was “contrary to precedent” which is the line of discussion that I took issue with. In that sense, I’m not seeing much of a distinction, but I would continue to say that nothing in Heller was contrary to precedent as you asserted in post #252. Heller did carve new ground and made certain things more explicit of course. Recognizing a right that, according to precedent, had not been recognized before, is, to my mind, “contrary to precedent”. You are free to think otherwise. Heck, I think there is certainly a right to self defense, although it is not enumerated in the Bill of Rights. I also think there is an individual right to keep and bear arms. But that should not be the end of the inquiry, just the beginning. But it’s pretty clear that Heller changed the state of the law which, until it was decided, had pretty firmly been established. ---
**Author:** ![nelliebly](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/nelliebly/32/5422_2.png) [@nelliebly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nelliebly)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2019, 8:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/founding-fathers-influencing-todays-politics/839345/311 "2019-09-09T20:37:13Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > True. There are 300,000,000 guns in the uSA. About 10000 are used form murder. > > So you’d ban that 299,990,000 to solve that 10000. > And it wont. Gun control has never worked in the USA. > > And why do you want gun control? > > 1, to reduce suicides (biggest potion of gun deaths)? Well, I think suicide is both a tragedy and a right, and Japans seems to have no problem keeping it’s suicide rate well about the USAs with no guns. So, that’s a crappy reason. Lets get some more counseling and such out there. > > 1. To reduce Murder? Ok, but you see the violent crime rate has been going down for some time, while the number of guns owned is increasing. Hmmm. Maybe a few more reasonable restrictions, like on straw man sales might help, sure, why not? > > 2. To reduce mass killings? As I have proven, mass shootings are a product of the media, not guns. So, then, we’d have to get rid of the 1st Ad for that. Are you in favor? I’ve been following this thread because I think it’s fascinating, and I’ve learned a lot from both sides. About your #1, though, I’m curious: would you support higher taxes to “get more counseling and such out there”? I’m not trying to jack the thread, but I’ve heard this line, yet I never hear the people using it say they’d support what it would cost to make this happen. Is it hand-waving, or do you really mean it? ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2019, 8:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/founding-fathers-influencing-todays-politics/839345/312 "2019-09-09T20:38:18Z")
You never see or hear them actually doing anything about it, either. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2019, 9:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/founding-fathers-influencing-todays-politics/839345/313 "2019-09-09T21:35:32Z")
> [@QuickSilver](#): > > …And by resounding unanimous decision, if I recall. :rolleyes: Roe vs Wade wasnt unanimous. Lawrence v. Texas wasnt unanimous. Obergefell v. Hodges wasnt unanimous. Mapp v. Ohio wasnt unanimous. Miranda v. Arizona wasnt unanimous. I guess those are all bad decisions then, eh?:rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2019, 9:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/founding-fathers-influencing-todays-politics/839345/314 "2019-09-09T21:37:43Z")
> [@nelliebly](#): > > I’ve been following this thread because I think it’s fascinating, and I’ve learned a lot from both sides. About your #1, though, I’m curious: would you support higher taxes to “get more counseling and such out there”? I’m not trying to jack the thread, but I’ve heard this line, yet I never hear the people using it say they’d support what it would cost to make this happen. Is it hand-waving, or do you really mean it? Sure, or we could just not waste the billions on the “Wall”. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2019, 9:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/founding-fathers-influencing-todays-politics/839345/315 "2019-09-09T21:38:47Z")
> [@ElvisL1ves](#): > > You never see or hear them actually doing anything about it, either. I write my congresscritter, what do you do? ---
**Author:** ![QuickSilver](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quicksilver/32/7832_2.png) [@QuickSilver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/QuickSilver)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2019, 11:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/founding-fathers-influencing-todays-politics/839345/316 "2019-09-09T23:49:42Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > Roe vs Wade wasnt unanimous. > Lawrence v. Texas wasnt unanimous. > Obergefell v. Hodges wasnt unanimous. > > Mapp v. Ohio wasnt unanimous. > > Miranda v. Arizona wasnt unanimous. > > I guess those are all bad decisions then, eh?:rolleyes: You didn’t say anything about good or bad decisions. You said: “_…experienced justices ruled otherwise in Heller and previous decisions._” Implying what exactly; that the dissenting SCOTUS judges were _inexperienced_ in the law? ---
**Author:** ![QuickSilver](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quicksilver/32/7832_2.png) [@QuickSilver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/QuickSilver)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2019, 11:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/founding-fathers-influencing-todays-politics/839345/317 "2019-09-09T23:55:01Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > I write my congresscritter, what do you do? I choose not to contribute to the problem by buying guns. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2019, 12:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/founding-fathers-influencing-todays-politics/839345/318 "2019-09-10T00:27:56Z")
> [@QuickSilver](#): > > You didn’t say anything about good or bad decisions. You said: “_…experienced justices ruled otherwise in Heller and previous decisions._” > > Implying what exactly; that the dissenting SCOTUS judges were _inexperienced_ in the law? Not _implying_, sorry I am out and out stating that the posters here on this message board are not experienced justices in Constitutional Law. No, they were simply out voted, which occurred in all those rather groundbreaking, great and critical cases i posted. \*Roe vs Wade wasnt unanimous. Lawrence v. Texas wasnt unanimous. Obergefell v. Hodges wasnt unanimous. Mapp v. Ohio wasnt unanimous. Miranda v. Arizona wasnt unanimous.\* So, as _you_ seem to be implying any decision which isnt unanimous is a bad one, which make all of those great decisions also bad. :rolleyes: I disagree- lack of unanimity seems to be the hallmark of a groundbreaking, great and critical case. ---
**Author:** ![Jonathan\_Chance](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jonathan_chance/32/701_2.png) [@Jonathan\_Chance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jonathan_Chance)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2019, 12:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/founding-fathers-influencing-todays-politics/839345/319 "2019-09-10T00:33:26Z")
> [@ElvisL1ves](#): > > No\* intellectually-honest \*way. You know, I’m going to rule that an insult, Elvis. Such phrasing has been ruled so before. Don’t insult other posters, nor even imply that they are lying. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2019, 12:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/founding-fathers-influencing-todays-politics/839345/320 "2019-09-10T00:58:46Z")
> [@Abatis](#): > > First off, the right to arms is not granted, given, created or established by the 2nd Amendment. Repealing it would not allow the federal government to “infringe” on the right. The People possess the right because we never granted to government any power to impact the personal arms of the private citizen. Granting that new power would need to happen, repeal the 2nd to remove the redundant prohibition to exercise powers never granted and then grant the feds the new (hopefully specifically defined) power to restrict the citizen’s arms possession and use. The Second Amendment, if one reads it literally, always applied to state governments as well as the federal government, and the Constitution plainly and clearly gives states the power to make and enforce criminal law. Were the Second Amendment to be repealed it would be entirely constitutional for any state government to simply make it illegal to possess a firearm, just as it is Constitutional for them to make any number of things illegal that are not specifically protected in the Constitution. ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2019, 7:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/founding-fathers-influencing-todays-politics/839345/321 "2019-09-10T19:24:40Z")
> [@Bone](#): > > Do you think there is such a thing as “human rights”? Something such that a country like, North Korea, could violate? > > Everyone starts with certain unalienable rights. The right to not be killed for example. Just because someone kills another person, doesn’t mean they didn’t possess that right, it means that someone violated their rights. That a right is violated does not mean that it never existed, though depending on circumstances one may not have the ability to enforce those rights. > > **In your view, people are subjects of the government. In the context of the US, the government is subject to the people.** Bolding mine. In point of fact, both of the two last sentences are true, and political philosophies differ largely in the extent to which they value the role of government or, alternatively, seek to minimize it. The whole gun debate in essence revolves around that issue – whether it’s government’s role to promote a society that is relatively free of guns so that the right not to be killed by a random lunatic is part of the social contract, or whether possession of such weaponry is an individual right regardless of the societal consequences. The idea that “the government is subject to the people” is an oft-cited trope in American history, as if true democracies did not exist elsewhere. But in fact they do, and often in a more robust form, free of plutocratic rule, and relatively free of the corrupting influence of money in politics and relatively free of gun violence wrought by an extreme devotion to individualism. To quote a current conservative hero, Neil Gorsuch, making my point albeit no doubt unintentionally: For Gorsuch, the structure of government is his lodestar even more fundamentally so than the Bill of Rights. “North Korea has an excellent Bill of Rights,” he offers. “They promise all the rights we have, and a bunch more. Right to free medical care, right to free education, and my favorite, a right to relaxation.” “Now, ask political prisoners how is that working out?” he queries. For Gorsuch, those promises “aren’t worth the paper they’re written on” because there aren’t structures to keep the power “from flowing into one set of hands.” [https://www.cnn.com/2019/09/10/politics/neil-gorsuch-precedent-north-korea-washington-nationals-trump/index.html](https://www.cnn.com/2019/09/10/politics/neil-gorsuch-precedent-north-korea-washington-nationals-trump/index.html) Thus even the libertarian Cato Institute ranks the US #17 in the world on the [Human Freedom Index](https://object.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/human-freedom-index-files/human-freedom-index-2018-revised.pdf) [PDF], behind New Zealand, Switzerland, Hong Kong, Australia, Canada, Netherlands, Denmark, Ireland, United Kingdom, Finland, Norway, Taiwan, Germany, Estonia, Luxembourg, and Austria. And according to [FreedomHouse.org](https://freedomhouse.org/report/countries-world-freedom-2019?order=field_fiw_aggregate_score&sort=desc), the US comes out much worse, way down at #53 on the index of personal freedom. So obviously the principle of government – or societal structures in general – being subservient to the people in America isn’t working out quite as intended. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/founding-fathers-influencing-todays-politics/839345.md?page=15) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/founding-fathers-influencing-todays-politics/839345.md?page=17)